From left standing, Deciphera Pharmaceuticals CEO Daniel Flynn, and Dr. Mark Berger, the company's first chief medical officer, visit with Ben Turner, seated, a scientist, in the company's labs. Deciphera, where two dozen scientists are developing drugs to fight cancer, is located in downtown Lawrence at 643 Mass. by Mike Yoder

In downtown Lawrence, in a lab above Massachusetts Street, about two dozen scientists are at work, developing drugs to fight cancer.

They work for Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, housed on the second floor of a tall brick building just across from Liberty Hall and a few doors down from Starbucks.

Their work to find a cure for a disease that killed 570,000 people last year, including 5,300 Kansans, is done in two highly regulated giant labs that are just beyond the offices. Everyone wears a white lab coat, green gloves and protective eyewear. Some of the folks in the lab are looking at computers while others are mixing substances. Most have earned PhDs in subjects such as chemistry, cellular biology and pharmaceuticals.

During a recent tour of Deciphera’s labs, CEO Daniel Flynn points out a freezer that’s kept at about “minus 86 degrees” and stores about $1 million worth of protein. He mentions the drug-resistant cells that are shipped in from around the world.

There’s also an expensive system that’s been installed to ensure that the quality of air that leaves the building is as good, if not better, than when it came in, and meets Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards.

He also talks about how the company has reached a turning point.

Since its founding eight years ago, most of the work has been done in labs. Now, the company is beginning to move its work into medical clinics where it can potentially save lives.

“Deciphera has matured its drug pipeline to the point where human clinical trials are essential to understand the potential of our drug candidates,” he said.

KU partnership

Deciphera recently teamed up with Kansas University Cancer Center to open a clinical trial for one of its drugs — known as DCC-2036. It is for leukemia patients who have no other options and for whom standard treatments have failed.

Dr. Kapil Bhalla, deputy director at KU Cancer Center, described the drug as very promising.

“This drug works,” he said. “It’s a new drug that overcomes resistance against currently available drugs.”

The drug first became available for humans in 2009 when it entered a Phase 1 clinical study.

“Our first task in the Phase 1 trial was to, first and foremost, demonstrate safety and the tolerability of the drug candidate,” Flynn said. “After about the first year, we had confidence that the drug was safe and well-tolerated, and then we moved to open up additional sites so that we now can additionally explore the clinical benefit of DCC-2036 in cancer patients.”

Until recently, the drug was only available at three other sites: MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Tufts Medical Center in Boston, and the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center in Ann Arbor.

Last year, KU recruited Dr. Bhalla, a world-renowned expert in blood cancers, and that has helped grow the relationship between KU and Deciphera.

“This is really good because we really did need a Midwest site to open up to provide a site for patients who live in the region to be able to get access to these investigational drugs in cancer,” Flynn said.

Deciphera Pharmaceuticals moved to downtown Lawrence in February from Kansas University's Life Science Research Laboratories at 1501 Wakarusa Drive. Deciphera, a drug discovery and development company, has about 30 employees. by Mike Yoder

Clinical trials

Deciphera has seven drug programs — three of them are nearing readiness for clinical trials. Flynn hopes that within 10 to 15 months, Deciphera will take a drug called DCC 2618, which aims to help patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors, into clinics.

To help with Deciphera’s clinical strategy, Flynn has hired Dr. Mark Berger as the company’s first chief medical officer. He’s a hematologist and oncologist with experience in developing new cancer drugs in both large and small companies. He previously was vice president of clinical development at Gemin X Pharmaceuticals where he led development of a treatment for small-cell lung cancer.

Berger said his job is to figure out how to get these drugs to humans in the safest, quickest way possible without spending a lot of money.

Flynn said it takes about $2.5 million to get each drug to the point where it is ready to study in humans. That’s why he’s grateful for a $1.6 million grant that was awarded recently through the Kansas Bioscience Authority Voucher Program.

“It’s imperative that we capitalize and apply for grants and vouchers,” he said.

The grant will be used to support preclinical development activities for its drugs.

To receive the grant, Deciphera has to match the funding and collaborate with Kansas companies. For this grant, its partners include Xenometrics LLC, an animal testing and toxicology facility in Stilwell; XenoTech, a Lenexa-based firm that specializes in drug metabolism services; and KCAS, a provider of bioanalytical services in Shawnee.

Flynn, a KU graduate, said there are a lot of Kansans who are financially supporting Deciphera as investors.

“Our master plan has always been to build a company, grow our assets, and get these drugs into clinical trials, where they can benefit patients,” Flynn said.

Kansas University graduate Samantha Schroeder works as an analytical chemist at Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, 643 Mass. She has been with the company for two years. by Mike Yoder

Drug gives hope

About 30 patients have enrolled in the clinical trial for its first drug DCC-2036. These are patients with chronic myeloid leukemia — or cancer of the white blood cells — and have developed a resistance to standard treatment.

About 5,000 people are diagnosed with the disease each year in the U.S., according to Bhalla. It occurs in all ages group, but most commonly occurs in mid-age or 40s.

Bhalla said there are three FDA-approved drugs that have worked to turn the disease from an acute one, where people died in four years, to a chronic one.

“Right now, we can treat it. The problem is some patients develop a resistance to the available drugs,” he said.

That’s where Deciphera’s drug comes into play. It has been effective in these patients who are showing resistance.

“It’s a fairly easy form of treatment,” he said. “You are dealing with a lethal disease and you are taking two pills a day — we used to dream of this.”

Bhalla also believes the same drug can help people with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and is opening a clinical trial for that as well.

KU offers about 200 clinical trials with about 15 percent of its patients enrolling in them.

“At the end of all of this, of course, is our patients,” Bhalla said. “We are doing everything we can to bring them the most promising, safest treatments here at home.”