Eureka Therapeutics

About Eureka Therapeutics

Eureka Therapeutics, founded in 2006 by Dr. Cheng Liu, is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Emeryville, California, concentrating on the development of T-cell therapies for cancer. The company's inception was driven by Dr. Liu's personal connection to medicine, with both parents being doctors, and his extensive academic and professional background, including a Ph.D. in Molecular Cell Biology from UC Berkeley and a role as a Principal Scientist at Chiron (now Novartis). Dr. Liu established the company with the goal of curing cancer, a vision that has attracted significant investment, accumulating over $196 million across several funding rounds.

The company's business model centers on developing its proprietary technology platforms and advancing a pipeline of therapeutic candidates, both independently and through strategic partnerships. Revenue is generated through these collaborations, which can involve technology licensing and co-development agreements with other pharmaceutical and biotech firms like Lyell Immunopharma, Imugene, and Porton Advanced. This dual approach of internal development and external collaboration allows the company to leverage its specialized technology while managing the financial risks associated with drug development.

Eureka's core technology includes two main platforms: the E-ALPHA® antibody discovery platform and the ARTEMIS® cell receptor platform. The E-ALPHA® platform is engineered to discover antibodies that can recognize intracellular cancer antigens, which are proteins found inside cancer cells and are typically inaccessible to conventional antibody therapies. The ARTEMIS® (Antibody Redirected T-cells with Endogenous Modular Immune Signaling) platform utilizes these antibodies to engineer a patient's own T-cells, enhancing their natural ability to find and destroy cancer cells. A key feature of ARTEMIS® T-cells is their potential for a better safety profile compared to conventional CAR-T therapies, showing a significant reduction in cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and neurotoxicity in preclinical studies.

The company is advancing a pipeline of T-cell therapies aimed at treating both solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. Key clinical programs include treatments for liver cancer, such as ET140203, which targets AFP-positive liver cancer in both adult and pediatric patients, and ECT204, which targets GPC3-positive liver cancer and has advanced to Phase II trials. The company has received Orphan Drug, Fast Track, and Rare Pediatric Disease designations for its liver cancer programs. Eureka's strategy also involves expanding its pipeline by licensing promising antibody targets from institutions like the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to address other cancers, including neuroblastoma.