Pursuant to the agreement, the collaboration will conclude on May 6, 2008. Research efforts under the collaboration have focused on the preclinical development of small molecule and protein Hedgehog agonists, primarily for stroke and cardiovascular indications.
Daniel Passeri, president and CEO of Curis, said: “Our focus remains on our core cancer assets and we expect to achieve several key upcoming milestones for these programs, including Genentech’s initiation of Phase II testing of our Hedgehog systemic antagonist in one or more solid tumor indications in 2008 and a near-term IND application for our proprietary targeted cancer drug candidate CUDC-101, a potentially first-in-class small molecule inhibitor of EGFR, Her2 and HDAC.”