Ash­er Bio­ther­a­peu­tics joins search for a bet­ter IL-2 sans the tox­i­c­i­ties

Can IL-2 ther­a­pies — which can be pow­er­ful against can­cer but in­fa­mous for their tox­ic side ef­fects — be made in­her­ent­ly more spe­cif­ic? For Ash­er Bio­ther­a­peu­tics, that’s the $55 mil­lion ques­tion.

Ivana Djuret­ic and Andy Ye­ung left their jobs in can­cer im­munol­o­gy and pro­tein en­gi­neer­ing at Pfiz­er in 2019 to start Ash­er with the idea that they could im­prove the ef­fi­ca­cy of im­munother­a­pies. More specif­i­cal­ly, they want­ed to know if re­strict­ing the ac­tiv­i­ty of a cy­tokine to on­ly the cells that mat­ter would coun­ter­in­tu­itive­ly re­sult in bet­ter ther­a­peu­tics.

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