CytomX Therapeutics, Inc.

CytomX is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing new cancer treatments. The company specializes in conditionally activated, masked biologic therapies using its PROBODY technology platform. This platform uses knowledge of tumor-associated enzymes called proteases. The masking strategy aims to reduce a therapeutic's binding to targets until proteases in the tumor microenvironment remove the mask, allowing for more selective tumor targeting and improving the predicted therapeutic index of drug candidates. CytomX has applied its PROBODY platform for over 15 years, resulting in a pipeline of clinical-stage and pre-clinical stage programs. When designing PROBODY therapeutics, the company considers drug targets previously validated for anti-tumor activity but limited by expression and toxicity in healthy tissues. They also evaluate the clinical unmet need that could be addressed by systemic, masked targeting, and the effector mechanism, applying the PROBODY platform to modalities like antibody drug conjugates ("ADCs"), T-cell engagers ("TCEs"), and cytokines. The goal is to align the indication with the most validated drug modality and cancer cell killing mechanism. CytomX's two current clinical programs, varsetatug masetecan ("Varseta-M") and CX-801, are in Phase 1 clinical development. Varseta-M is an investigational, conditionally activated antibody-drug conjugate ("ADC") targeting epithelial cell adhesion molecule ("EpCAM").