Bicycle Therapeutics announces collaboration with the German Cancer Research Center, to discover and develop Wholly Owned Bicycle® Radio Conjugates for a range of oncology targets

Bicycle Therapeutics plc (NASDAQ: BCYC), a biotechnology company pioneering a new and differentiated class of therapeutics based on its proprietary bicyclic peptide (Bicycle®) technology, today announced that it has entered into a collaboration with the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), to develop and discover Bicycle® radio conjugates (BRCs) for a range of oncology targets.

Founded in 1964, DKFZ is the largest biomedical research institution in Germany. It is a premier radioligand therapy organization that has a proven track record of supporting the development of such therapies and, together with the University of Heidelberg, was vital to the early development of Pluvicto™.

Bicycle and DKFZ have been collaborating on tumor targeting BRCs which in preclinical studies, have shown superior tumor uptake compared to antibody-based approaches. Results from the preclinical study were published in Cancer Research in February 2019 and can be accessed here. With this new alliance, the relationship has expanded to include a more continuous and purpose-driven commitment towards advancing candidates towards the clinic.

Professor Matthias Eder commented that he and his colleagues at DKFZ were excited to work with Bicycle to develop novel radiopharmaceutical therapies. “We have experience working with Bicycle scientists on radiochemistry projects and believe that the physicochemical properties of Bicycle’s constrained bi-cyclic peptides make them ideal ligands for targeted radioisotope delivery.”

“We believe the advancement of BRCs is a promising application of the Bicycle platform and represents the third leg within our core oncology focus. Building on the recent announcement of our collaboration with Novartis, we are excited to deepen our relationship with DKFZ, a leading radioligand research organization, to seek to accelerate the development of our wholly owned BRCs,” said Kevin Lee, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Bicycle Therapeutics.

“The goal of the collaboration is to develop a pipeline of wholly owned BRC compounds with the potential to become new treatment options for patients living with cancer.”

Dr. Lee continued, “We are thrilled to have now announced multiple collaborations in the radiopharmaceutical space this year, which we believe provides further validation of the Bicycle platform. Likewise, we remain encouraged by data generated to date from our wholly owned pipeline of Bicycle Toxin Conjugates® (BTCs) and Bicycle tumor-targeted immune cell agonists (Bicycle TICAs) which we believe demonstrates differentiation compared to antibody-based approaches and other modalities. We look forward to providing multiple updates this year as we advance BT8009, BT5528 and BT7480 in the clinic. In addition, we intend to commence initial testing of our own BRCs in patients by the end of 2024.”