Gastric adenoma

Surface Oncology is letting go of 20% of its workforce as the biotech prunes its pipeline and narrows the scope of its lead drug. The Boston-area cancer drug developer is looking for external partners on its CD39 asset, dubbed SRF617, after a strategic review, which the company said would extend runway into the second quarter of 2024, with burn historically being about $20 million per quarter. On the sidelines of ASCO this June, CEO Rob Ross told Endpoints News the asset was one of the biotech’s two “crown jewels” and hinted that a partner would likely be needed. But Wednesday’s news, disclosed in the quarterly update, is perhaps a little earlier than expected. “We’re very focused on moving them forward ourselves,” Ross told Endpoints in June, referring to ‘617 and lead drug SRF388. “Having said that, I think it would be hubris and a little ridiculous for me to say that we would not partner. In fact, for small biotech, at some partnership, particularly in I/O, becomes super important, so we’re always talking with everyone we both can name and talking through the data and thinking about whether or not a partnership gets this drug to patients more quickly. And at some point, the answer to that is going to be ‘Yes.’” On an investor call Wednesday morning, Ross said the next steps for the culled asset would likely have been a Phase II combination study, given the lack of signals seen with monotherapy data to date. The original vision included treating patients with gastric, prostate, pancreatic and PD-(L)1 relapsed cancers. Also getting adjusted is lead asset SRF388, which Ross said on the call is the only IL-27-targeting antibody in the clinic as far as the biotech is aware. Surface has decided to focus the ongoing Phase II trial on lung and liver cancers, and end an arm looking at a subset of kidney cancer. With those updates, Surface is laying off one-fifth of its workforce, which stood at 67 employees at the end of February. Of those, 45 were involved in R&D. On the call, Ross said affected employees are getting “extensive support.” “Once a surfer, always a surfer,” the CEO added. Meanwhile, the company wants to go up against Big Pharma in chemokine receptor 8, or CCR8. Surface will start dosing patients in a Phase I study of SRF114 soon, as the FDA cleared the IND last month. Ross said he believes Surface will be about the fourth to enter the clinic, following Gilead, Shionogi and Bristol Myers Squibb. Gilead paid out another $15 million to its CCR8 partner Jounce Therapeutics, the biotech said Wednesday, as part of their overall $805 million September 2020 agreement for GS-1811, which is currently in Phase I for advanced solid tumors. Five Prime Therapeutics had also been conducting preclinical work on an anti-CCR8 antibody prior to being swept into the Amgen fold . FibroGen also waded into the space last year in a pact with HiFiBiO . A handful of others want to enter the clinic, as well: Texas-based iBio, Coherus BioSciences, Zai Lab and others.