Keeping the Gas off AXL

With its development of an AXL decoy able to trap and sequester the native receptor’s ligand with femtomolar affinity, Aravive Biologics Inc. believes it has a biologic that can bypass the potency and selectivity issues of the small molecule AXL inhibitors already in the clinic for cancer. The company plans to submit an IND in 2017 for its lead candidate, Aravive-S6, in leukemia.

Last month, Aravive changed its name from Ruga Corp., and moved from Palo Alto to Houston to accept a $20 million grant from the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) to help bring the compound to the clinic. ...