Kazia Therapeutics Limited, an oncology-focused biotechnology company developing therapies that selectively reprogram cancer biology, restore anti-tumor immunity and overcome treatment resistance, has been named "Drug Discovery Company of the Year" in the 2026 BioTech Breakthrough Awards program, recognizing the Company's innovative approach to developing next-generation cancer therapeutics.
"Treatment resistance remains one of the greatest challenges in advanced breast cancer and other difficult-to-treat cancers. At Kazia, we are pursuing a differentiated approach to drug discovery that goes beyond conventional pathway inhibition to address the underlying biological mechanisms that enable tumors to evade the immune system and resist treatment," said Dr. John Friend, CEO, Kazia Therapeutics. "We are honored by this recognition from BioTech Breakthrough and look forward to advancing our pipeline of therapeutics with the potential to meaningfully improve outcomes for patients whose cancers no longer respond to available treatments."
Kazia's lead asset, paxalisib, is an investigational, oral, brain-penetrant dual PI3K/mTOR inhibitor with emerging evidence supporting its potential to reprogram cancer biology and the tumor microenvironment through epigenetic and immune-mediated mechanisms. Ongoing and planned studies include triple-negative breast cancer, HR+/HER2- breast cancer and MSS/pMMR colorectal cancer. The Company's pipeline also includes two potentially first-in-class preclinical assets: NDL2, a nuclear PD-L1 protein degrader designed to target a tumor-enriched protein implicated in immune evasion and metastatic progression, and MSETC, a SETDB1 inhibitor designed to restore immune signaling in immunotherapy-resistant tumors, both in preclinical development. Together, these programs reflect Kazia's strategy of targeting complementary biological mechanisms that contribute to cancer progression and therapeutic resistance.