Ellipses Pharma widens its orbit

Ellipses Pharma is doubling down on its strategy to build a mechanistically diverse oncology pipeline, and once again it is looking to China to do it.

The private UK biotech on Monday licensed ex-China rights to an anti-B7-H3 antibody-drug conjugate from Innolake. The asset, previously known as ILB-3101 and now named EP0028, is the second Chinese-origin project to enter Ellipses’ portfolio. The ADC pairs a B7-H3-targeting antibody with an eribulin payload, a design that could draw attention as the field grapples with safety baggage associated with conjugates using deruxtecan payloads.

EP0028 joins Ellipses’ most advanced asset, a selective RET inhibitor, EP0031, licensed ex-China from Kelun in 2021. EP0031 is being tested in a phase 2 trial sponsored by Ellipses in the US, Europe, and the United Arab Emirates. In parallel, Kelun has already filed an NDA with China’s Centre for Drug Evaluation for approval in RET-positive NSCLC, relying on data from its own China-sponsored study.

In the Chinese trial Kelun reported a 63% overall response rate in 27 treatment-naive patients, with responses holding up at 56% in subjects who had received prior therapies.

EP0028

Now the focus falls on EP0028, which Innolake is evaluating in an early-stage trial in China, although no clinical data have yet been disclosed. 

Ellipses plans to initiate a separate study in the US following regulatory clearance. The ADC is the only B7-H3-targeting conjugate that uses eribulin as its payload in the clinic, a design that could help mitigate some of the safety concerns that have recently plagued the most advanced B7-H3-targeted ADC, ifinatamab deruxtecan, whose phase 3 Ideate-Lung02 trial recently went on hold after reports of grade 5 interstitial lung disease.

Ellipses has also been assembling an early-stage programme aimed at less crowded areas of biology, and in February 2025 it licensed EP0089, an antibody targeting contactin-4 (CNTN4), from South Korea’s Genome & Co. 

CNTN4 acts as a negative regulator of T-cell activity through its interaction with amyloid precursor protein, and is said to be highly expressed in pancreatic, liver and prostate cancers. According to OncologyPipeline EP0089 is the only project hitting this target in clinical development, and is now in a phase 1/2 study in South Korea, with plans to expand into the US and Europe.

Elsewhere in the pipeline is a selective androgen receptor modulator, vosilasarm, acquired from Radius Health in October 2020. The SARM is being evaluated both as monotherapy and in combination with SERDs and CDK4/6 inhibitors in heavily pretreated breast cancer patients, where early data showed one response among nine participants receiving monotherapy.

Completing the picture is a dual Aurora and FLT3 inhibitor, mobinitinib, developed in collaboration with the Institute of Cancer Research under the code CCT241736, which is being tested in a phase 1/2 trial in combination with Venclexta for the treatment of advanced haematological malignancies. 

While Ellipses has not disclosed its total fund raising, according to PitchBook, its last raise brought in $151m. Ellipses has also kept the price tag for EP0028, as well as its previous licensing deals, confidential, making it difficult to judge how far its cash will stretch as it advances multiple clinical programmes.

Ellipses Pharma pipeline 

Source: OncologyPipeline.