IDEAYA Bio­sciences: Tar­get­ing un­met mar­ket needs with pre­ci­sion on­col­o­gy

IDEAYA’s drug de­vel­op­ment pro­grams fo­cus on meet­ing the needs of can­cer pa­tients with lim­it­ed treat­ment op­tions. Founder Yu­jiro Ha­ta dis­cuss­es how the in­ter­sec­tion of tech­nol­o­gy rev­o­lu­tions of­fers un­prece­dent­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for treat­ment break­throughs on RBC Cap­i­tal Mar­kets’ pod­cast se­ries, Pathfind­ers in Bio­phar­ma.

KEY POINTS

• Co­in­cid­ing ad­vances in AI and ge­net­ic se­quenc­ing are cre­at­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties for drug break­throughs.
• IDEAYA lever­ages syn­thet­ic lethal­i­ty to iden­ti­fy tar­gets for can­cers that were pre­vi­ous­ly seen as un­treat­able.
• The com­pa­ny be­lieves it is the first to de­liv­er de­vel­op­ment can­di­dates linked to en­zymes known as he­li­cas­es.
• Part­ner­ships with mul­ti­ple phar­ma com­pa­nies en­able IDEAYA to have more mol­e­cules in de­vel­op­ment, ac­cel­er­at­ing the dis­cov­ery and de­liv­ery of in­no­v­a­tive treat­ments for pa­tients.

Tech in­ter­sec­tion fu­els progress

“I have nev­er been more ex­cit­ed than I am to­day to be in the field of pre­ci­sion med­i­cine on­col­o­gy as a pub­licly trad­ed com­pa­ny,” says Yu­jiro Ha­ta.

The Pres­i­dent and CEO of IDEAYA Bio­sciences sees vast po­ten­tial in the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of ge­net­ic se­quenc­ing da­ta, com­bined with com­pu­ta­tion­al ther­a­py and ad­vances in AI and ma­chine learn­ing.

Some have hailed it a gold­en age of can­cer treat­ment: Ha­ta dubs the cur­rent phase as “gold­en age ex­po­nen­tial”.

“Of­ten, the great­est ad­vances hap­pen when you have an in­ter­sec­tion of tech­nol­o­gy rev­o­lu­tions,” he be­lieves. “Those in­ter­sec­tions ul­ti­mate­ly will cre­ate new ther­a­pies and tremen­dous break­throughs.”

“I have nev­er been more ex­cit­ed than I am to­day to be in the field of pre­ci­sion med­i­cine on­col­o­gy as a pub­licly trad­ed com­pa­ny.” – Yu­jiro Ha­ta, Pres­i­dent and CEO, IDEAYA Bio­sciences

Bridg­ing the treat­ment gap

IDEAYA aims to be at the fore­front of can­cer ther­a­py in­no­va­tion by fo­cus­ing on an emerg­ing area of pre­ci­sion med­i­cine on­col­o­gy: syn­thet­ic lethal­i­ty.

The com­pa­ny us­es CRISPR gene edit­ing tech­nol­o­gy to iden­ti­fy new pa­tient bio­mark­ers and iden­ti­fy tar­gets with a high chance of treat­ment suc­cess.

While most pre­ci­sion med­i­cine re­search has fo­cused on ge­net­ic mu­ta­tions that cause gain-of-func­tion, IDEAYA con­cen­trates on the op­po­site phe­nom­e­non: al­ter­ations that cause loss-of-func­tion in path­ways tra­di­tion­al­ly viewed as un­treat­able.

“Over half of ge­net­ic al­ter­ations that are known to cause can­cer are loss-of-func­tion al­ter­ations. That means for the large ma­jor­i­ty of these pa­tients, we have not been able to pro­vide im­por­tant ther­a­pies,” he says. “We hope to fill that gap.”

Pi­o­neer­ing am­bi­tion

The firm has built sig­nif­i­cant know-how in its nine years of ex­is­tence. It has four first-in-class pro­grams in clin­ic and plans to in­tro­duce sev­er­al more can­di­dates by the end of 2024.

Ha­ta be­lieves it is the first com­pa­ny to de­liv­er back-to-back de­vel­op­ment can­di­dates linked to en­zymes known as he­li­cas­es.

He sees AI and ma­chine learn­ing as im­por­tant tools to en­hance ef­fi­cien­cy, squeeze time­lines and in­crease the prob­a­bil­i­ty of suc­cess. Un­til now, these tech­nolo­gies have pri­mar­i­ly been used for tar­gets that al­ready have ex­ist­ing drugs.

“Al­though that’s in­ter­est­ing, it’s not re­al­ly a break­through,” Ha­ta says. IDEAYA’s fo­cus is on tar­gets that have been viewed as “un­drug­gable”: “That’s go­ing to re­quire re­al­ly pi­o­neer­ing work – not just an un­der­stand­ing of AI and ma­chine learn­ing, but re­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant so­phis­ti­ca­tion around can­cer bi­ol­o­gy, as well as ba­sic med­i­c­i­nal chem­istry.”

Ha­ta is not con­tent to pur­sue paths carved out by oth­ers. “Our ob­jec­tive is not to have the fourth or fifth mol­e­cule in the clin­ic and be be­hind the com­pe­ti­tion, but in­stead to re­al­ly be the pi­o­neer, hope­ful­ly be the first or sec­ond mol­e­cule in the clin­ic, and re­al­ly de­fine a whole new space of can­cer.”

Phar­ma col­lab­o­ra­tions strength­en ca­pa­bil­i­ties

Part­ner­ships with phar­ma com­pa­nies will be the key to IDEAYA’s fu­ture suc­cess. Cel­gene and No­var­tis were among the com­pa­ny’s ear­ly in­vestors, and to­day the firm col­lab­o­rates with names such as Pfiz­er, Am­gen, Gilead, GSK, and Mer­ck.

“That list will grow,” Ha­ta pledges, to help ex­pand the num­ber of mol­e­cules we have in clin­ic at any giv­en time. “Smart part­ner­ships en­able the com­pa­ny to have scale,” he ex­plains.

IDEAYA will con­tin­ue to pri­or­i­tize in­no­va­tion in ar­eas where treat­ments do not yet ex­ist while ac­knowl­edg­ing that this can be time-con­sum­ing and en­tail greater risk: “If we con­tin­ue to fo­cus on un­met med­ical need, we’re go­ing to have a great path for­ward,” said Ha­ta.

Stay ahead of the curve with the lat­est per­spec­tives from the cut­ting edge of biotech and phar­ma. Ex­plore RBC’s Pathfind­ers in Bio­phar­ma se­ries.