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Halda Therapeutics Named to C&E News 10 Start-Ups to Watch 2023 List

NEW HAVEN, CT, November 10, 2020 – Halda Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing a novel class of cancer therapies called RIPTAC^TM (Regulated Induced Proximity TArgeting Chimeras) therapeutics, today announced that it has been selected as one of 10 Start-Ups to Watch by Chemical & Engineering News.

Chemical & Engineering News (C&E News), the weekly news publication of the American Chemical Society (ACS), selects its annual list of 10 chemistry start-ups to watch from among hundreds of nominations submitted from readers around the world and those compiled by the magazine’s writers and editors, who scoured the chemical, biotech and materials world for young companies with great promise. Halda was selected by C&E News based on the company’s translation of the vision of its founder, Prof. Craig Crews of Yale University, into a proprietary platform for creating RIPTAC therapeutics, a new class of heterobifunctional small molecules with a selective and widely applicable cancer cell-killing mechanism that can overcome drug resistance.

“We are honored to be recognized as one of the 10 Start-Ups to Watch by C&E News and to have our RIPTAC therapeutics platform highlighted as a groundbreaking approach to target cancer in a new way. Our novel RIPTAC drug modality addresses a critical shortcoming shared by most current pharmaceutical modalities, namely, the reliance on oncogenic driver proteins which can result in drug resistance,” said Kat Kayser-Bricker, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer of Halda Therapeutics. “We continue to be motivated in our mission at Halda where we envision being part of a future where cancer is curable, and we continue to work to apply our platform to pioneer new medicines for cancer patients.”

RIPTAC therapeutics work by a novel “hold and kill” mechanism that brings together two proteins, a cancer-specific protein and a protein with essential function, into a stable trimeric complex. This novel pharmacology results in abrogation of the essential cell function, and subsequent selective cancer cell death. Halda’s lead drug program is for prostate cancer and works by targeting two proteins – the tumor-specific protein Androgen Receptor (AR) and an essential protein involved in transcriptional regulation – to induce a prostate cancer specific protein-protein interaction between these two proteins. This prostate cancer RIPTAC therapeutic has demonstrated oral efficacy superior to the standard of care agent, enzalutamide, in preclinical animal models. The novel mode of action of RIPTAC therapeutics is designed to overcome the known bypass mechanisms of resistance that evolve during a course of therapy, which is a common limitation of today’s precision oncology medicines. Halda has also built a pipeline of other RIPTAC therapeutics with novel mechanisms of action, with an initial focus on major solid tumor types to treat medical unmet needs in oncology.

About C&E News
C&EN is an independent source of journalism about chemistry and related fields. C&EN is published and financially supported by the American Chemical Society (ACS), a nonprofit scientific society and scholarly journal publisher based in the US. C&E News provides credible, authoritative journalism for ACS members and the global chemical sciences community.

About Halda Therapeutics
Halda Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing a proprietary RIPTAC™ (Regulated Induced Proximity TArgeting Chimeras) modality that works by a novel “hold and kill” mechanism for the precision treatment of cancer. The novel mechanism of action of RIPTAC therapeutics is uniquely designed to address cancer’s ability to evolve bypass mechanisms of resistance, a common limitation of today’s precision oncology medicines. The company has built a robust pipeline of therapeutics, with an initial focus on bringing new drugs to address these patient populations. Our leading programs are in major solid tumor types, with additional RIPTAC therapeutic programs in development to treat medical unmet needs in oncology. Halda is led by a leadership team with deep expertise in bifunctional drug discovery, platform innovation, and company building, and is located in New Haven, CT. For more information, please visit www.haldatx.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Media Contact:
Kathryn Morris
The Yates Network LLC
914-204-6412
kathryn@theyatesnetwork.com