A Two-Pronged Attack on Cancer: Claire Mazumdar on The Long Run

Claire Mazumdar is today’s guest on The Long Run.

She is the founding CEO of Boston-based Bicara Therapeutics.

Claire Mazumdar, CEO, Bicara Therapeutics

Bicara is developing a bifunctional antibody for head and neck cancer. It’s called ficerafusp alfa, and it’s designed to bind with a couple of well-known biological targets, EGFR and TGF-beta. The idea is to block a well-known cancer driver in EGFR, while also making the tumor microenvironment a little less hostile for cells of the immune system. By combining this Bicara medicine with Merck’s pembrolizumab, a drug that releases the brakes on the immune system, scientists hope to create the conditions for a long-lasting, vigorous immune system attack on the cancer.

The company released Phase I clinical trial data at the recent American Society of Clinical Oncology. Bicara looked a group of head and neck cancer patients who didn’t have cancer driven by the human papillomavirus. Researchers found that 15 of those first 28 patients (54 percent) had significant tumor shrinkage, and the median survival time was 21.3 months. That’s good news for cancer patients, and enough to justify Bicara’s plan to advance into a pivotal Phase II/III clinical trial to confirm the finding in a larger patient population.

Wall Street, however, was disappointed by the results, especially compared with a competing bispecific antibody for head and neck cancer from Netherlands-based Merus.

Bicara is fortunate that it hasn’t had to make cutbacks to weather the storm of bearish sentiment in the markets. It raised $362 million in an IPO in September 2024. The company said in its most recent quarterly report that it has enough cash to operate into the first half of 2029.

The biological rationale for the program, recent advances in antibody engineering, the entrepreneurial spirit of Claire and her colleagues, and a deep pool of investors with an appetite for risk are all part of the equation of what makes this sort of progress possible for patients with head and neck cancer.

Now, please join me and Claire Mazumdar on The Long Run.