Escend Pharmaceuticals

Company profile

Escend Pharmaceuticals company profile

Escend is developing therapeutics that target cancer stem cells. Our business model is to reduce drug development risk by selecting foreign-approved drugs with established clinical safety and developing them based on new scientific information for oncology orphan diseases. We carve out intellectual property around methods of use claims and strengthen our position with orphan drug designation. Our lead program, ES-3000, is a phase II ready, orally bio-available small molecule that inhibits leukemic stem cells. ES-3000 is approved by China FDA for rheumatoid arthritis and has previously been in a US phase I trial. It has been shown to inhibit the development of leukemic stem cells through multiple on-target effects including inhibition of β-catenin. We have toxicology and CMC data, including stability of our drug product. We have also conducted our pre-IND meeting with the FDA. ES 3000 has been granted two orphan drug designations by the FDA for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Our initial focus is developing ES-3000 for refractory and relapsed AML. We are seeking Series A to submit our IND and initiate Phase I/II trial.