AACR 2023 – Hippo makes a splash

If one purpose of AACR meetings is to bring before a wide audience novel oncology mechanisms that have hitherto sailed under the radar then this year might have seen the Hippo/Yap/Tead pathway emerge from obscurity.

At least a dozen projects with this mechanism were presented over the weekend, most importantly VT3989, a Tead palmitoylation inhibitor from the private group Vivace Therapeutics that yielded clinical data. The pipeline includes projects from Novartis and Sanofi, and investors in Ikena Oncology, which went public two years ago, should also pay close attention.