Shasqi is a

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...

company based in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. The company is known for developing click chemistry-based therapies to treat

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

. Their targeting approach is designed to activate powerful cancer therapies at the desired location in the body (e.g. the tumor), thereby minimizing side effects of powerful cancer treatments. Shasqi is the first to use click chemistry in humans.

History

Shasqi was founded in 2015 after participating in

Y Combinator Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, St ...

’s program. The company was named after the shasqi, or ''chasqui'''','' runners that distributed messages and goods across the Inca empire by running the Inca trails. The need for Shasqi's mission came from the realization that only 1%–2% of the total dose of medicine given to a patient reaches its desired target in the body. José M. Mejía Oneto wondered if there was a better way to tell drugs where to go in the body. Mejia Oneto started exploring click chemistry for this purpose, met

Carolyn Bertozzi Carolyn Ruth Bertozzi (born October 10, 1966) is an American chemist and Nobel laureate, known for her wide-ranging work spanning both chemistry and biology. She coined the term "bioorthogonal chemistry" for chemical reactions compatible with ...

at a research conference in 2014 and decided to launch the company. Shasqi has been collaborating with the Royzen Lab at the

University at Albany The State University of New York at Albany, commonly referred to as the University at Albany, UAlbany or SUNY Albany, is a public research university with campuses in Albany, Rensselaer, and Guilderland, New York. Founded in 1844, it is one ...

on research using click chemistry for sarcoma treatments since 2016. In 2017, Mejía Oneto recruited Sebastian Sanchez de Lozada to help him run Shasqi. The two had met as roommates while studying at

Macalester College Macalester College () is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 2,174 students in the fall of 2018 from 50 U.S. states, four U.S te ...

. Shasqi has received multiple

SBIR The Small Business Innovation Research (or SBIR) program is a U.S. government funding program, coordinated by the Small Business Administration, intended to help certain small businesses conduct research and development (R&D). Funding takes the ...

Phase II grants from the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

in 2017 and from the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

. Shasqi began focusing exclusively on

oncology Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the study, treatment, diagnosis and prevention of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an ''oncologist''. The name's etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγκος (''� ...

in 2018. The company developed a platform known as CAPAC (Click Activated Protodrugs Against Cancer), which is designed to localize cancer therapies at the tumor. The platform’s lead asset, SQ3370, is recorded as the first use of click chemistry in the human body. This investigational product enables the activation of a chemotherapy medication,

Doxorubicin Doxorubicin, sold under the brand name Adriamycin among others, is a chemotherapy medication used to treat cancer. This includes breast cancer, bladder cancer, Kaposi's sarcoma, lymphoma, and acute lymphocytic leukemia. It is often used toge ...

, at the tumor site while reducing systemic side effects. The CAPAC technology uses the

tetrazine Tetrazine is a compound that consists of a six-membered aromatic ring containing four nitrogen atoms with the molecular formula C2 H2 N4. The name ''tetrazine'' is used in the nomenclature of derivatives of this compound. Three core-ring isome ...

ligation to localize cancer therapies at the

tumor A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...

site. Phase 1 of the SQ3370 clinical trial using the company’s CAPAC technology, began in 2019. Shasqi has presented interim Phase 1 results for SQ3370 in advanced solid tumors showing the total dose of doxorubicin administered to the tumor site was 12 times the conventional dose, without the myelosuppression and cardiac toxicity expected from those dose levels. Shasqi advanced the SQ3370 program to a Phase 2 clinical trial in 2022 testing the safety and efficacy of SQ3370 in patients with solid tumors who have never received a dose of doxorubicin. The CAPAC technology is designed to enhance

chemotherapies Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemothera ...

, as well as other cancer therapies, like

antibody-drug conjugates Antibody-drug conjugates or ADCs are a class of biopharmaceutical drugs designed as a targeted therapy for treating cancer. Unlike chemotherapy, ADCs are intended to target and kill tumor cells while sparing healthy cells. As of 2019, some 56 phar ...

. Shasqi was one of the companies that participated in the JPM20 healthcare conference. In October 2022, Shasqi Scientific Advisor

won the

Nobel Prize for Chemistry ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then "M ...

for

bioorthogonal chemistry The term bioorthogonal chemistry refers to any chemical reaction that can occur inside of living systems without interfering with native biochemical processes. The term was coined by Carolyn R. Bertozzi in 2003. Since its introduction, the concept ...

the concept on which the company’s technology is based.

References

{{Reflist 2015 establishments in California Biotechnology companies established in 2015 Biotechnology companies of the United States