Step Pharma, an EIC Accelerator Winner, Targets Ovarian Cancer

Dividing cells need CTP, a nucleotide used to make DNA, and they have two enzymes to produce it: CTPS1 and CTPS2. Step Pharma's bet, as the company and its EIC project describe it, is that a tumour which has lost CTPS2 depends entirely on CTPS1, so a drug that blocks only CTPS1 should kill those cancer cells while sparing normal tissue. The company's chief scientific officer, Philip Beer, said in October 2025 that "about 15-20% of ovarian cancers harbour this deletion", the same range the company gave when it dosed its first solid tumour patient in September 2024.

The EIC Accelerator selected the project, named after the drug's code STP938, at its October 2025 cut-off for blended finance. CORDIS records an EU contribution of €2,499,990.50, signed on 30 May 2026, for a project running from 1 June 2026 to 31 August 2027. Step Pharma announced the award on 19 February 2026 as a €2.5 million grant plus a potential equity investment of up to €10 million from the EIC. The grant period began five months before this review, so this article sets out what the project promised and what can already be checked.

From an immune disorder to a cancer target

The target comes from paediatric immunology. In 2014 a team including Alain Fischer and Sylvain Latour of the Imagine Institute in Paris reported in Nature that patients with a loss-of-function mutation in CTPS1 had a life-threatening immunodeficiency, because their activated T and B cells could not proliferate, and suggested CTPS1 as a drug target. Step Pharma was founded the same year on that work, according to the company and its 2021 Series B release. Sygnature Discovery, one of the founders, says its chemists started a medicinal chemistry programme with Step Pharma and the Imagine Institute in 2015, synthesised more than 2,000 compounds and delivered 300 g of STP938 for toxicology and pharmacology studies.

The first clinical use followed that logic: lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphocytes that depend on CTPS1. A phase 1/2 trial in relapsed or refractory B-cell and T-cell lymphoma started on 3 August 2022 according to its registry entry, and the US Food and Drug Administration granted the drug orphan drug designation for T-cell lymphoma in May 2025. The solid tumour idea, CTPS2 loss, came later: Beer says it came from the company's analysis of clinico-genomic data, which he presented in an October 2025 conference session on the AACR's GENIE cancer genomics database.

What the EIC project promises

The CORDIS objective describes a project in platinum-resistant or refractory ovarian and endometrial cancer. After the ongoing phase 1a dose escalation, the grant is to pay for a phase 1b study in 10 endometrial cancer patients selected with a validated test for CTPS2 loss, covering recruitment, biomarker screening and regulatory preparation. If that works, a phase 2 study would enrol 40 patients with the biomarker and 40 without, to test whether the biomarker predicts who responds. The requested €10 million of EIC equity would pay for phase 2. The company's February 2026 release lists drug manufacturing and pivotal toxicology studies among the preparations for phase 2.

1. Phase 1a dose escalation in solid tumoursRunningNCT06297525 is recruiting, with primary completion estimated for December 2026.
2. CTPS2-null ovarian expansion cohortNo start reportedPlanned for the first quarter of 2025 in the September 2024 release; described as starting in 2026 in the February 2026 release.
3. Phase 1b in 10 endometrial patientsNot in registryThe trial record, last updated 16 June 2026, describes no endometrial cohort.
4. Validated CTPS2 biomarker testRecruitment upcomingThe French study of the test was listed as not yet recruiting in its 21 August 2026 revision; no results are published.
5. EIC equity for phase 2Not announcedNo completed EIC Fund investment has been announced by the company.

What can already be checked

The solid tumour trial is real and running. Its ClinicalTrials.gov record, checked on 4 November 2026, shows a phase 1 study that started on 2 August 2024, aims to enrol 70 patients and recruits at Gustave Roussy in Villejuif, at the Beatson in Glasgow, University College London and The Christie in Manchester, and at three US sites. Its official title mentions only a safety expansion in CTPS2-null ovarian cancer. The February 2026 release also announced a lung cancer cohort, and the CORDIS project centres on endometrial patients, but neither appears in the record.

The timing has moved. When the first patient was dosed in September 2024, the company said the ovarian expansion was "planned to start in Q1 2025". In February 2026 it wrote that enrolment in the expansion cohorts was expected to begin in 2026. France's public trial portal lists a companion study of the immunohistochemistry test that decides who can enter the ovarian part, with four participants at Nice, Villejuif and Rennes; its revision of 21 August 2026 shows recruitment as "à venir", still to come. A search of the company's website and of news coverage on 4 November 2026 found no announcement that the ovarian or endometrial cohorts have dosed a patient.

The main published evidence for the gynaecological approach is preclinical. A Theranostics paper published in July 2026 by a Mayo Clinic group, with Beer as a co-author, reports that STP938 had anti-tumour effects at nanomolar concentrations in breast and ovarian cancer cell lines, including chemotherapy- and PARP inhibitor-resistant ones, in six ex vivo ovarian cancer models from patients, and in one ovarian cancer model in mice. Its competing interests statement says Step Pharma supplied the compound but did not fund the work or take part in its design or analysis. No human efficacy data for dencatistat in any indication has been published; the lymphoma trial record shows no posted results.

The side effect that became a programme

The fastest-moving use of the drug is not cancer. In the lymphoma trial, the company says, continuous dosing lowered platelet counts in a dose-dependent and reversible way, which intermittent dosing has since managed in lymphoma and solid tumour patients. Step Pharma turned that into a treatment idea for essential thrombocythaemia, a rare blood disorder in which the bone marrow makes too many platelets, and announced on 2 September 2025 that the first participant had been dosed in a phase 1b study of about 20 patients at 12 sites in France and the United Kingdom.

On 17 June 2026 the company announced that it had moved into a phase 2 trial, named VECTRA, for up to 50 people at sites in the US, the EU and the UK, citing "positive phase 1b data" and "early benefits" across all participants. The release gives no patient numbers, response rates or safety figures, and says the company expects to start phase 3 in 2028. The trial is registered as NCT06786234.

The money behind the drug

Step Pharma raised a €35 million Series B in March 2021, co-led by Hadean Ventures and Sunstone Life Science Ventures, and announced a €38 million Series C on 15 October 2025, led by V-Bio Ventures, whose partner Ward Capoen joined the board; V-Bio's lawyers confirm the amount. The CORDIS summary describes the financing differently: €37.7 million of "Series C1" secured for the ovarian trials, and a further €25 million "Series C2" that EIC support is meant to unlock for the endometrial trial. No Series C2 closing has been announced.

The French register adds little. The national company directory lists Step Pharma SAS as active, with research and development in biotechnology as its activity, and records a net loss of €2,754,576 and no revenue for 2020, the only year it shows. Societe.com shows the registered seat in Paris, a secondary establishment in Saint-Genis-Pouilly since 1 October 2021, Andrew Parker as president since 1 October 2019, share capital of €4,162,694.60, no collective proceedings, and revenue and results for 2022 to 2024 as not published. Both record a staff bracket of 1 to 2 salaried employees; the size of the wider team working on the drug is not public.

Why the EU funds it

The Commission's Europe's Beating Cancer Plan includes an EU platform to improve access to cancer medicines, and the CORDIS summary pitches the project as the start of a European-led gynaecological oncology franchise. The European link is concrete: the target comes from research at a Paris institute, the chemistry programme ran with founding partner Sygnature Discovery, the company's investors include Bpifrance's biotech funds, and its solid tumour trial recruits at French and British cancer centres as well as in the US.

Step Pharma has not been asked for comment for this article. The reporting is based on publicly available sources, listed below.