ApeX Therapeutics receives grant

ApeX Therapeutics recently received a Phase 1, Small Business Innovation Research grant for $240,332 from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health, according to a press release.   

The grant will allow the company to develop an oral or injectable medicine to more effectively treat leukemia and other cancerous tumors in children.

“This grant and recent investments will enable progress to the next milestone — a pre-investigational new drug meeting with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to establish a safe and efficient path to first-in-human trials in several different types of leukemia,” Martin Haslanger, CEO of ApeX Therapeutics and the grant’s principal investigator, said in the release.

ApeX Therapeutics is a cancer-focused drug discovery and development company with technology licensed from IU Research and Technology Corp., according to the release. The company is funded in part by the Innovate Fund and the Pearl Street Venture Fund.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the company has also identified a therapy for the most common cancer diagnosed in children, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, according to the release.

“While great strides have been made in the treatment and outcomes for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, there still exist those who do not respond to the standard treatments in this and other pediatric leukemias,” Mark R. Kelley, associate director of the IU Herman B Wells Center for Pediatric Research and chief scientific founder of ApeX Therapeutics, said in the release. “There is still much room for
improvement.”

- Makenzie Holland