Barricade Therapeutics, Corp., a bio-pharmaceutical company pioneering solutions for colorectal cancer, has received a $14,005,035 grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT).
The funding, part of CPRIT’s Texas Therapeutics Company Awards for Product Development Research, will support the Phase 1 clinical development of Barricade’s innovative therapeutic candidate BT-1501 for APCmut advanced colorectal cancer (CRC) patients.
“This is a pivotal moment for Barricade. The feeling now is excitement and urgency as we position our drug candidate for testing in colorectal cancer patients where we plan to positively impact treatment options for this unmet medical need,” said CEO Neil Thapar.
Barricade, a member client of TechFW in Fort Worth and a 2024 cohort member of the TMC innovation Factory – Accelerator for Cancer Therapeutics in Houston, previously has raised $5.9M, including $3M from a previous CPRIT Seed grant award. “CPRIT’s grant support has been invaluable toward enabling Barricade to declare BT-1501 as its clinical drug candidate. This product development grant award represents further validation that our drug class exhibits significant investigational merit, not only for colorectal cancer, but potentially for other difficult-to-treat cancers.”
Barricade plans to hire several seasoned drug development professionals and executives to execute on the clinical development of BT-1501 as well as to exploit other drugs in its platform for other cancer types.
Barricade Therapeutics was co-founded in 2017 by Neil Thapar, Pharm.D., R.Ph., dedicated to developing innovative treatments to address unmet need in CRC. In 2018, John Walling, Ph.D., joined Barricade as COO and Sr. VP of Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls. Thapar and Walling previously worked together for many years at Reata Pharmaceuticals and Walling was one of earliest investors in Barricade.
Barricade Therapeutics has been a TechFW SmartStart member for six years. Thapar has leveraged its mentorship, community support, and program resources to support and refine Barricade’s groundbreaking research and development. “Over the years, TechFW has provided support and company building strategies that have been instrumental and a great asset for Barricade Therapeutics,” Thapar said. “Additionally, Barricade has leveraged the expertise of the TMC innovation Factory-Accelerator for Cancer Therapeutics to support the advancement of BT-1501 to first in-human trials.”
Barricade holds the exclusive license to the TASIN platform technology, which includes BT-1501, from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Its intellectual Property has been nationalized globally in major market areas. The CPRIT funding will support the first in-human clinical trial, which is specific to the APC gene mutation that is present in more than 80% of CRC cases and a critical driver of tumor progression.
Pre-clinical studies have demonstrated the ability of BT-1501 to significantly reduce tumor growth with minimal toxicity. This targeted therapeutic has the potential to be a more effective and less invasive treatment option relative to current standard of care treatments for metastatic colorectal cancer.
The statistics for CRC are dismal; worldwide, more than 1.9 million people are diagnosed with CRC every year, the 3rd most common cancer with more than 900,000 deaths each year, the 2nd highest of all cancer-related deaths.
The company plans to have an Investigational New Drug (IND) application ready for the Food and Drug Administration by the second quarter of 2025, which would allow the company to proceed with human trials.
The Phase 1 human trial is a dose escalation, optimization and recommended Phase 2 dose determination in APCmut CRC patients. Its intent would be to define safety, tolerability and the pharmacokinetics of BT-1501. Eligible study participants would have failed first- and second-line standard of care treatment regimens. Thapar indicated there are two key milestones — data from the ascending dose portion of the study are expected approximately 10 months after study initiation followed by Phase 1B data in about two years.
ABOUT CPRIT
Created by the Texas Legislature and approved by a statewide vote in 2007, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) leads the Lone Star State’s fight against cancer. The agency has awarded more than $3.7 billion in grants to Texas research institutions and organizations through its academic research, prevention and product development research programs. CPRIT also has recruited 324 distinguished researchers to Texas, supported the establishment, expansion, or relocation of 74 companies to Texas, and supported 10.1 million prevention services reaching all 254 counties in Texas.
