Accent therapeutics

Accent Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing small molecule precision cancer therapies. The company targets critical intracellular dependencies that span multiple types of cancer, with a particular emphasis on RNA-modifying proteins (RMPs) and adjacent high-value areas. Accent's lead program is a first-in-class DHX9 inhibitor, which aims to address high unmet need indications including BRCA loss of function cancers (breast, ovarian), mismatch repair deficient (dMMR) or microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) cancers (colorectal, endometrial, gastric), and other cancer types. DHX9 is a DNA/RNA helicase involved in various cellular processes, and its inhibition exploits key tumor vulnerabilities.

The company's second lead program is a potentially best-in-class KIF18A inhibitor. KIF18A is a mitotic kinesin motor protein critical for cell division in tumors with chromosomal instability. This inhibitor could potentially benefit patients with ovarian cancer and triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). Accent planned to initiate IND-enabling studies for KIF18A in the first half of 2024. In addition to these programs, Accent is developing inhibitors for other targets such as XRN1, ADAR1, and DHX9, which have shown promise in preclinical studies for various cancer indications.