LOS ANGELES, July 17 — On the seventh floor of a biotechnology office building here, Dr. Gary J. Peltz is closing in on a long-sought target in cancer treatment: an enzyme called deoxycytidine kinase. The scientist leads development of TRE-515 at Trethera Corporation, the Los Angeles-based company founded in 2015.
TRE-515 is a small-molecule inhibitor of dCK — a drug designed to block the enzyme that cancer cells rely on to build new DNA. The compound has already completed Phase 1 clinical trials, a first step in human testing that measures safety and dosing.
A Target Decades in the Making
Peltz, a co-author of a 2025 review on dCK published in the journal Trends in Pharmacological Sciences, brings a background in genetics and drug discovery to the work. Before joining Trethera, he held positions at Stanford University. That academic grounding shows in the review’s detailed look at how dCK functions: the enzyme is a gatekeeper for the salvage pathway, a cellular recycling system that cancer cells hijack to churn out nucleotides for rapid division.
Block dCK, the theory goes, and you starve the tumor of building blocks. The review describes preclinical mouse models where dCK inhibition produced measurable tumor reduction in two aggressive cancers: pancreatic cancer and leukemia.
Neither finding came from a single experiment; both were replicated across multiple animal studies.
From Bench to Bedside
Trethera, a small company by biotech standards, has focused its pipeline almost entirely on TRE-515. The Phase 1 trial’s completion marks a critical transition: the drug has passed initial safety checks in humans, and the data now moves toward Phase 2 efficacy trials. Peltz and his team have not disclosed exact patient numbers or efficacy results from the Phase 1 study, but the progression itself signals that no major safety red flags emerged.
Pancreatic cancer remains one of the deadliest malignancies, with five-year survival rates in the single digits. Leukemia, a cancer of blood-forming tissues, encompasses several subtypes that vary widely in prognosis.
A drug that works across both disease types would represent a significant advance. The Trends in Pharmacological Sciences review, which Peltz co-authored, situates the dCK work within a broader landscape of metabolic-targeting drugs. Other researchers have pursued similar enzymes in the nucleotide synthesis pathway, but dCK’s position at the pathway’s entry point makes it an especially attractive target.
What happens next hinges on the Phase 2 trial design. Trethera has not yet announced a start date for the next stage, but the company has signaled that pancreatic cancer patients will be a primary focus.
Leukemia patients may follow in a separate cohort. By nightfall in Los Angeles, the laboratory lights remain on. Consult your doctor for medical advice.
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