Letting go of inhibition

A University of California, San Francisco team has created a new class of reversible, covalent small molecule kinase inhibitors that could be more selective and safer than previous kinase inhibitors.¹ Principia Biopharma Inc. has exclusively licensed the technology and plans to develop new compounds to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases.

Many first-generation kinase inhibitors hit multiple kinases in addition to the kinase implicated in disease, which often results in unwanted off-target effects...