Careers
What We Do
EpicentRx, Inc., headquartered in La Jolla, CA, is centered around two well-tolerated novel therapeutic platforms for diseases of urgent unmet medical need. These treatments, which target therapeutic resistance, aim to restore immunity – and hope – to patients with limited treatment options and inadequate disease control.
What Guides Us
At EpicentRx, certain bedrock principles guide what we do. Professionally, these are GLP and GCP—Good Laboratory Practice, Good Clinical Practice, and other applicable regulatory requirements. Personally, these are GTP, and GRP—Good Teamwork Practices, and Good Respect Practices. Therapeutically these are GSP and GPP—Good Sensitizing and Protection Practices.
EpicentRx’s “PRETECT” program is led by a first-in-class small molecule, nibrozetone (RRx-001), in Phase 3 and Phase 2b clinical trials. “PRETECT” is a hybrid word of pretreatment and protection; it refers to the pretreatment use of RRx-001 (nibrozetone) to protect normal tissues but not tumors against the short- and long-term effects of toxicity from oxidative stress and inflammation. The hoped-for result of “pretection” is better tolerability, improved convenience, cost effectiveness, and adherence to treatment with lower rates of treatment resistance and failure in several serious, life-threatening, or severely debilitating inflammatory conditions like cancer, neurodegeneration, severe oral mucositis, endometriosis, and cardiopulmonary diseases.
The “AdAPT” Platform, built around a genetically tuned adenovirus (TAV-255), also known as the common cold, is led by AdAPT-001 which carries a TGF-β trap. Evidence from a Phase 2 clinical trial also suggests that AdAPT-001 may sensitize tumors and protect normal tissues from harm.
FRANCK BRINKHAUS, Ph.D.
Chief Financial Officer
CHRIS LARSON,
M.D. Ph.D.
Vice President of Viral Therapy
MEAGHAN STIRN,
M.B.A
Controller & VP of Special Projects
SCOTT CAROEN
Senior Director of Operations & Corporate Development
Rajan Kumar
ESQ
Chief Executive Officer & Chief Scientific Office
Control inflammation & control the disease
RRx-001 inhibits the inflammasome
The Inflammasome is responsible for activation of inflammatory responses. With chronic inflammation tissue destruction that occurs outpaces the regeneration of damaged tissues. Eventually, over time, the normal function of these tissues is reduced or lost. In chronically inflamed tissues, which may result from unresolved sources of foreign bodies, irritants or infections, the inflammasome fuels an inflammatory response for weeks to months or even years, resulting in a range of metabolic, neurological, autoimmune disorders as well as in the initiation of cancer.
The Answer: AdAPT-001 programs infected cancer cells to produce a TGFβ “trap” molecule that is designed to neutralize TGFβ within the infected tumor. Eliminating the t-cell silencing TGFβ protein allows for the immune system to remain activated against cancer, making AdAPT-001 unlike any other immunotherapy.
AdAPT-001 doesn’t just create a cancer targeted infection, it produces a proprietary TGFβ “trap” protein to eliminate this tumor defense mechanism and allow for sustained immune response against cancer – alone or in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors.