Checkpoint inhibitor-resistant solid tumors and fibroinflammatory diseases like systemic sclerosis (SSc) and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) represent significant unmet medical needs due to limited therapeutic options and incomplete understanding of underlying mechanisms. In oncology, up to 85% of patients with advanced cancers fail to achieve durable responses to immune-checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). Despite efforts to categorize resistance phenotypes, standardized definitions and predictive biomarkers remain elusive, leaving patients with progressive disease few salvage options beyond palliative chemotherapy.

Similarly, patients suffering from fibroinflammatory diseases face a deficit in transformative therapies. For example, 40% of IPF patients with confirmed diagnoses receive no antifibrotic therapy, while SSc-associated ILD lacks treatments that address its complex interplay of autoimmunity, vasculopathy, and fibrosis. Current antifibrotics like nintedanib only slow progression rather than reverse established fibrosis, and can have debilitating side effects with chronic use.

Spica Therapeutics is a pioneering biotech company dedicated to identifying and targeting pathogenic macrophage subsets across multiple therapeutic areas including oncology, fibroinflammatory and autoimmune disease. Leveraging proprietary functional macrophage fingerprinting technology and world-leading macrophage expertise, Spica identifies macrophage subsets based on their phenotype and function in human disease datasets, where these subsets can be clustered based on different clinical parameters, including treatment response or non-response.

Results from this innovative platform show strong enrichment of different macrophage subsets with treatment-responsive and treatment-refractory patients, ultimately leading to the development of two antibody assets targeting CD163 expressing immunosuppressive tumor-associated macrophages in checkpoint inhibitor refractory oncology patients as well as pro-fibrotic macrophages in fibroinflammatory disease.

Founded on groundbreaking research conducted at the University of Aarhus, Southern Denmark University and INSERM, Spica operates from its headquarters in Belgium, with an additional site in Denmark. Additionally, Spica entered a strategic collaboration with Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and VIB, a leading life sciences research institute to leverage world-class expertise across Belgium. The team consists of expert macrophage scientists and individuals with extensive backgrounds in drug-development experience.