Raising KRAS

For the first time, a joint research team from Wellspring Biosciences LLC and the Janssen Research & Development unit of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) showed a small molecule K-Ras (KRAS) inhibitor worked in animal models of cancer. The results could pave the way for clinical development of a therapy against the target, a member of the notoriously “undruggable” Ras family of proteins.

Kevan Shokat, co-founder of drug discovery incubator Wellspring and professor at the University of California San Francisco, told BioCentury the latest study means “all signs are a go to get this into humans.”...