RAPT Therapeutics‘ journey began in 2013 when Kleiner Perkins incubated a company known as Flexus Bioscience to develop novel small molecule therapies to treat cancer and drugs for debilitating inflammatory diseases. Small molecule therapies had created much excitement in the treatment of cancer with the ability to exclusively target affected cells by traversing the plasma membrane and interacting with cell-surface receptors and intracellular signaling molecules.

Less than 24 months later, Bristol Myers Squibb acquired most of the company’s assets for $1.26 billion. At the same time, a new company was spun out to discover and develop drugs based on the Flexus team’s expertise in immunology, small molecule drug discovery and computational biology. That company is now RAPT Therapeutics. Its proprietary discovery and development engine, leveraging big data and proprietary informatics, is focused on highly selective treatments that intelligently target key immune drivers to more effectively and safely treat cancer and inflammatory diseases.

One of RAPT’s most exciting drugs under development currently is RPT 193 which is starting clinical trials with a therapy to treat patients with inflammatory diseases such as atopic dermatitis and asthma. The company continues to advance its pipeline of oral small molecule therapeutics, with proof-of-concept results expected in 2020 from the FLX475 program targeting multiple cancers and from RPT 193 in atopic dermatitis.

With strong leadership and a team of scientists with substantial knowledge and expertise in drug discovery and development, RAPT Therapeutics is harnessing the immune system to combat cancer and allergic disorders with the goal of developing oral drugs to improve patients lives.