Pyxis Oncology, Inc.

Pyxis Oncology is a clinical-stage oncology company advancing a development strategy focused on addressing unmet medical needs in patients with solid tumors with an immediate focus on head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Our lead product candidate, micvotabart pelidotin (MICVO, formerly PYX-201), is an investigational novel antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) that uniquely targets the splice variant of fibronectin, extradomain-B of fibronectin (EDB+FN), a non-cellular structural component of the extracellular matrix (ECM) in the tumor microenvironment (TME). EDB+FN is an isoform of fibronectin present in tumors that is negligibly expressed in normal adult tissues and facilitates cancer progression by playing multiple roles including promoting cell proliferation, adhesion, and migration, activating the integrin signaling pathway, stimulating angiogenesis and vascular remodeling, driving epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), and establishing the pre-metastatic niche. We believe EDB+FN is a compelling target for cancer therapeutics as the physiological expression of EDB+FN is very low in healthy adult tissues, yet it is found to be highly expressed in a variety of solid tumors. Our ADC, MICVO, consists of a fully human IgG1 monoclonal antibody that is site-specifically conjugated to a cleavable linker with an optimized auristatin (Aur0101) microtubule inhibitor payload.