Esker Therapeutics in San Francisco launched on 5 May with $70m in series A financing from Foresite Capital to discover and develop precision medicines for autoimmune disorders, including lead drug candidate ESK-001 for psoriasis. The TYK2 inhibitor has greater selectivity for TYK2 over JAK1 compared to other TYK2-targeting therapies in development and is being evaluated in a Phase I healthy volunteer study. Esker is going up against some highly experienced autoimmune disease drug developers, including Bristol Myers Squibb Company, which will file for US FDA approval of its TYK2 inhibitor deucravacitinib in psoriasis later this year. (Also see "Bristol Lays Groundwork For First Dermatology Launch, Ahead Of TYK2 Inhibitor" - Scrip, 26 April, 2021.) The start-up’s drug discovery platform emerged from Foresite’s incubator, Foresite Labs, and combines curated genetic, clinical and health records data with a systems immunology toolkit for prospective data collection and tools for building patient registries. Altogether, these resources will be used to determine the best targets, pathways, indications and patient subsets for drug development.

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