Cullinan Oncology Inc. and Taiho Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. announced an agreement through which Taiho will acquire Cullinan Pearl Corp. and co-develop and co-commercialize Cullinan Oncology’s lead program, CLN-081/TAS6417, an orally available, differentiated, irreversible EGFR inhibitor that selectively targets cells expressing EGFR exon 20 insertion mutations, while sparing cells expressing wild-type EGFR in non-small cell lung cancer.
Arjan Gower, a hematologist/oncologist at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, received a $950,000 grant from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and Taiho Oncology Inc. to help launch a multi-institutional clinical trial to test zipalertinib, an investigational drug that targets specific EGFR mutations, including Exon 20 insertions, which are known to drive cancer growth and resist standard treatments.Â
