The engine behind Empirica is a powerful functional genomics platform combined with unique patient-based models of brain cancer and recurrence, which are enabling the discovery of new therapeutics options that have emerged from the patient’s actual tumour biology. The company is focused on the development of adoptive immunotherapies against the most aggressive and treatment-resistant forms of cancers, including glioblastoma (GBM) and brain metastasis (BM).

Empirica Therapeutics was founded in July 2018 by Dr. Sheila Singh, a pediatric neurosurgeon, and Dr. Jason Moffat, an expert in functional genomics and gene-editing platforms.

The first product in Empirica’s preclinical pipeline is ET001. ET001 is based on genetically engineered T cells with chimeric antigen receptors that specifically bind to a CD133 antigen to recognize and kill the cancer cells. The Empirica team has validated CD133 as an essential marker of therapy-resistant GBMs and developed ET001 that targets the treatment-refractory disease reservoirs, showing great preclinical efficacy against GBM recurrence. This potential therapeutic could also be trialed in patients with brain metastases that also express high levels of CD133.