Synthekine

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.