Caris Life Sciences and HotSpot Therapeutics collaborate to advance precision medicine development for difficult-to-drug therapeutic targets

Caris Life Sciences and HotSpot Therapeutics, Inc, have partnered to advance precision medicine approaches for HotSpot’s emerging product portfolio. The partnership will focus initially on two therapeutic programmes, the first of which is HotSpot’s novel allosteric inhibitor of the E3 ubiquitin ligase CBL-B, an important target in cancer immunotherapy, spanning from pre-First in Human (FIH) trials through potential Companion Diagnostics (CDx) and launch, Caris Life Sciences notified in a statement.

Jonathan Montagu, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, HotSpot Therapeutics, said, “Access to Caris’ comprehensive suite of tissue and liquid profiling, real-world data, and broader capabilities will enable robust interrogation of large datasets to accelerate our drug development efforts. This collaboration will yield data-informed insights to inform and speed clinical development and rapidly deliver new treatment options to patients.”

Since the launch of its molecular profiling service in 2009, Caris has amassed molecular data on more than 356,000 patients and clinical outcomes on more than 275,000 patients. Insights gained from Caris’s best-in-class real-world clinico-molecular matched database will be leveraged to optimise HotSpot’s development programmes, including cohort design, biomarker strategy, and future CDx needs and strategies. Under the terms of the agreement, patients enrolled in HotSpot’s phase-I through phase-III trials will undergo longitudinal testing with Caris’s comprehensive tissue and liquid molecular profiling analysis. Through their combined expertise and innovative technology platforms, Caris and HotSpot will work together to bring forward novel treatment options that maximise benefits to patients, the statement said.

David Spetzler, MS, PhD, MBA, President and Chief Scientific Officer, Caris, said, “Our breadth and depth of whole exome and whole transcriptome sequencing will provide important information at the individual patient level both in tissue and in blood, and the amount of actionable data generated per patient from HotSpot’s studies will be unprecedented, potentially translating into smarter trials and an acceleration of benefit to patients.”

In addition to the commitment to profiling and real-world data insights, Caris is granted negotiation rights for CDx programmes of partnership therapeutic programmes. While detailed partnership financial terms have not been disclosed, the financial commitment is based on programme specifics and has the potential to exceed $40 million if programmes progress through regulatory approval and additional milestones are met.