Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRVS), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, today announced the publication of preclinical data highlighting the potential of soquelitinib, the Company's lead ITK inhibitor program, as a novel approach to modulate tumor immunity. The data was published in npj Drug Discovery (part of the Nature portfolio of journals), an open access, international, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing the highest quality research relevant to all aspects of drug design and discovery.

The publication, entitled "Synthesis and characterization of soquelitinib a selective ITK inhibitor that modulates tumor immunity," includes a detailed overview of soquelitinib's mechanism of action – suppressing Th2 and Th17 cytokine production and sparing Th1 cytokines – that serves as a novel approach to cancer immunotherapy, both as a single agent and in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors. The data also shows that soquelitinib increases effector function of cytotoxic CD8 positive T cells and leads to an increase in memory T cells with enhanced effector function.