Tyrosine kinase inhibitors have turned chronic myelogenous leukemia into a chronic disease for many patients, but imposes a financial burden on payers. Cantargia AB thinks that targeting CML stem cells can provide a cost-effective, curative therapy.

The majority of CML cases are characterized by cells carrying the Philadelphia chromosome, which encodes the oncogenic BCR-ABL fusion protein. The gold standard treatments for CML are TKIs that target BCR-ABL: Gleevec imatinib and Tasigna nilotinib from Novartis AG and Sprycel dasatinib from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.