About FAKnostics
Reimagining FAK Therapeutics and Diagnostics
Our Mission
To provide novel therapies and diagnostics utilizing our Focal Adhesion Kinase (FAK) platform technology to combat metastatic cancers and fibrosis, based on our efficient inhibitors and detectors of the FAK pathway.
Our Edge
Multiple companies have developed FAK inhibitors that target the kinase domain of FAK, but most have failed in clinical trials due to innate resistance mechanisms and poor specificity.
FAKnostics’ inhibitor targets the non-kinase domain, which has multiple advantages including: 1) delocalization of FAK from the focal adhesion, 2) disrupting of protein-protein complexes critical for drug resistance, 3) induction of cancer cell apoptosis, and 4) high cancer specificity.
Our FAKnosTest® companion diagnostic is based on our proprietary FAK antibody thoroughly tested on thousands of clinical samples.
Our History
1988
Dr. William Cance, Surgical Oncologist, develops extensive and deep focal adhesion kinase expertise in diagnostics and therapeutics
1993
Dr. William Cance, the "Godfather" of FAK, was the first to identify FAK in human tumors and report its overexpression
1996
First to show that attenuation of FAK causes apoptosis
2000
Discovery of FAK 4.47 monoclonal antibody used for immunohistochemical (IHC) diagnostic test
2002
First to report major resistance mechanisms in FAK kinase inhibitors
1998
First to demonostrate importance of targeting FAK in cancer
2004
FAKnostics became leaders in understanding the importance of FAK non-catalytic functions
2009
Demonstrated successful proof of principle for targeting non-catalytic FAK functions
2013
Focus on structural approaches to target the FAK scaffold
2020
Development of first-in-class peptide inhibitors of focal adhesion targeting (FAT) domain
2018
Development of FAKnosTEST – companion diagnostic and prognostic marker for cancer