BioCentury
ARTICLE | Company News

Telo, GSK targeting TERT to halt glioblastoma cell immortality

September 14, 2018 7:49 PM UTC

Telo Therapeutics Inc. (San Francisco, Calif.) is exploiting a partnership with GlaxoSmithKline plc (LSE:GSK; NYSE:GSK) to discover small molecules against an isoform of GABPB1, first identified as a cancer immortality target in a paper published on Sept. 10.

At least nine companies have therapeutics or vaccines in the clinic targeting telomerase activation to block the immortality mechanism in cancers, and GemVax & Kael Co. Ltd. (KOSDAQ:082270) markets Riavax, a cancer vaccine targeting human telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT). However, TERT is expressed in normal stem cells, meaning off-target effects remain a concern...