STC15 is STORM Therapeutics Limited‘s first-in-class, and first-to-clinic inhibitor of the post-transcriptional RNA modifier METTL3, which progressed from HTS hit to clinical development in less than three years.

Targeting RNA has been of significant recent interest, catalyzed in part by the clinical success of small molecule RNA splicing modifiers.

STC15 inhibits the methylation of RNA by blocking the RNA methyltransferase enzyme, METTL3, leading to the formation of immunogenic double-stranded RNA in cancer cells, potentially facilitating tumor clearance by the innate immune system.

METTL3 inhibitors have been previously identified, but no METTL3 inhibitors have entered clinical development until now.

In this article, we explore METTL3 as a therapeutic target, highlight the discovery story of STC15, its fascinating mechanism of action, provide the latest clinical development updates from ASCO 2024, and more.