{"entity":{"id":"synthekine","kind":"company","name":"Synthekine","aka":["Synthekine, Inc."],"tldr":"A US company that re-engineers cytokines, the immune system's chemical messengers, so they act on helpful immune cells and spare the ones that cause side effects. Its lead drug is in a Phase 2 trial for a type of lung cancer.","summary":"Synthekine engineers cytokine partial agonists and surrogate cytokine agonists. Its lead candidate, STK-012, is an alpha/beta-biased IL-2 partial agonist designed to stimulate antigen-activated T cells, which express the high-affinity IL-2 receptor (including IL-2R-alpha, CD25), while avoiding the NK-cell and naive T-cell activation the company links to capillary leak syndrome. STK-012 is in a randomised Phase 2 study with pembrolizumab and chemotherapy in first-line PD-L1-negative non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (SYNERGY-101, NCT05098132, with Merck Sharp & Dohme as collaborator). An IL-12 partial agonist for solid tumours is at the IND-enabling stage. Earlier cell therapy programmes using orthogonal IL-2 (SYNCAR-001 with an orthogonal IL-2 in CD19-positive cancers, and SYNCAR-002, a GPC3 CAR-T for hepatocellular carcinoma) are no longer in active development and are offered for partnering. The company was founded by K. Christopher Garcia of Stanford University.","asOf":"2026-11-04","links":[{"label":"Official website","url":"https://www.synthekine.com/"},{"label":"Pipeline page","url":"https://www.synthekine.com/our-pipeline/"},{"label":"About us","url":"https://www.synthekine.com/about-us/"},{"label":"ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05098132 (SYNERGY-101)","url":"https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05098132"},{"label":"RA Capital portfolio entry","url":"https://www.racap.com/portfolio/synthekine"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":["nsclc"],"sections":["immunotherapy"],"technologies":["cytokine-therapy"],"targets":["cd25","il2rb"],"drugs":["stk-012"],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":["nct05098132"],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":["Founding year not stated on the pages read.","NCT05665062 (SYNCAR-001 with orthogonal IL-2 in B-cell cancers, active, not recruiting) was confirmed through the ClinicalTrials.gov v2 API; it is not a trial record in OnCo and the programme is now a legacy programme."],"hq":"Menlo Park, CA","country":"US","companyType":"biotech","website":"https://www.synthekine.com/","stage":"startup","investors":["ra-capital"],"funding":[]},"route":"/companies/synthekine/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"nsclc","kind":"cancer","name":"Non-small-cell lung cancer","route":"/cancers/nsclc/"}],"section":[{"id":"immunotherapy","kind":"section","name":"Immunotherapy","route":"/fronts/immunotherapy/"}],"technology":[{"id":"cytokine-therapy","kind":"technology","name":"Cytokines & engineered cytokines","route":"/technologies/cytokine-therapy/"}],"target":[{"id":"cd25","kind":"target","name":"CD25 (IL-2 receptor alpha)","route":"/targets/cd25/"},{"id":"il2rb","kind":"target","name":"IL2RB","route":"/targets/il2rb/"}],"drug":[{"id":"stk-012","kind":"drug","name":"STK-012","route":"/drugs/stk-012/"}],"trial":[{"id":"nct05098132","kind":"trial","name":"Study of STK-012 Alone and With Other Treatments in Patients With Advanced Lung Cancer and Other Cancers","route":"/trials/nct05098132/"}],"company":[{"id":"ra-capital","kind":"company","name":"RA Capital Management","route":"/companies/ra-capital/"}]}}