Whitehawk Therapeutics President and CEO Dave Lennon said the oncology-focused antibody-drug conjugate developer has strengthened its balance sheet while advancing two clinical-stage assets through dose escalation, with a third program expected to be filed later this year.
Speaking at Stifel’s 2026 Virtual Target Oncology Forum, Lennon said Whitehawk recently completed an $87.5 million financing, bringing cash on hand to more than approximately $200 million. He said the funding extends the company’s projected runway into the end of 2028.
PTK7 Program Remains in Dose Escalation
Lennon described PTK7 as an “ideal ADC target,” citing its high expression during embryonic development, low expression in healthy adult tissues and overexpression across many cancers. He said PTK7 is expressed at high levels in roughly 70% of cancers and remains consistently expressed across disease progression and prior therapies.
Whitehawk’s PTK7 asset, HWK-007, is currently in dose escalation. Lennon said preclinical xenograft studies showed activity around 1 mg/kg, and that such studies generally translate “1-to-1” when considering a minimally active dose in humans. He said monkey toxicology data allowed the company to begin clinical trials in what it believes is already an active dose range.
The company is focusing the initial phase 1 trial on three indications: EGFR wild-type non-small cell lung cancer, endometrial cancer and platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. Lennon said these indications were selected because they are high PTK7 expressors and have clear ADC benchmark data.
For the program to be competitive, Lennon said Whitehawk has set internal efficacy thresholds. In ovarian and endometrial cancer, he said the company would look for at least a 50% overall response rate in the relevant dose range among efficacy-evaluable patients in dose escalation. In non-small cell lung cancer, he said the bar is lower, around 35% to 40%, based on existing benchmarks.
MUC16 Asset Targets Gynecologic Tumors
Lennon also discussed HWK-016, the company’s MUC16-directed ADC. He said MUC16 is highly expressed in gynecologic tumors, particularly ovarian cancer, and may be expressed at levels three to 10 times higher than common ADC targets such as FR alpha, HER2, CDH6 or claudin-6.
A key challenge with MUC16, Lennon said, is that it can be cleaved into the circulating antigen CA125, a blood-based biomarker commonly used in gynecologic oncology. He said an earlier Genentech program targeting MUC16 had to dose at high levels to overcome circulating CA125, leading to side effects and discontinuation.
Lennon said Whitehawk’s antibody targets an epitope below the CA125 cleavage site, which the company believes allows it to bind MUC16 at the tumor surface rather than in the blood. He said pharmacokinetics and dosing behavior in humans will be important early measures of whether the program is avoiding the circulating antigen issue.
He added that Whitehawk expects responses early in dose escalation for HWK-016, but said the central question will be tolerability. Lennon said the company believes its payload may be more “heme-sparing” than some other topoisomerase inhibitor-based ADC payloads, potentially reducing hematologic toxicities such as Grade 3 neutropenia.
SEZ6 Program Positioned Against AbbVie Comparator
Whitehawk’s third program, HWK-206, targets SEZ6 and uses a biparatopic antibody, meaning it binds two different epitopes on the same molecule. Lennon said this design can improve clustering and internalization of the ADC into tumor cells, which may enhance potency.
Lennon compared HWK-206 with AbbVie’s ABBV-706, which he said has shown promising efficacy in small cell lung cancer but uses a DXd-class payload associated with higher rates of Grade 3 neutropenia and other adverse events. He said Whitehawk believes HWK-206 may offer advantages in both efficacy and tolerability, though he noted the company still needs to demonstrate that profile clinically.
He said tolerability could be especially important for future combination therapy with chemotherapy or immuno-oncology agents in earlier-line settings for small cell and neuroendocrine tumors.
Upcoming Data Readouts
Lennon said Whitehawk expects to communicate phase 1 dose-escalation data for its internal programs in the first half of next year, with congress presentations expected in 2027.
He also pointed to an upcoming ASCO presentation from Whitehawk partner Hangzhou DAC. Lennon said Hangzhou DAC will present clinical data from an internal program using the CPT-113 linker-payload system against CD56 in lung cancer and neuroendocrine tumors. He described that presentation as the first clinical validation of the CPT-113 linker-payload system.
About Aadi Bioscience (NASDAQ:AADI)
Aadi Bioscience, Inc is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing precision medicines for genomically defined cancers. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, Aadi Bioscience was founded in 2012 and went public in 2019 on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker AADI. The company’s research strategy centers on identifying molecular drivers of tumor growth and designing small-molecule inhibitors that target these pathways.
The company’s lead product candidate, fimepinostat (CUDC-907), is a novel dual inhibitor of histone deacetylase (HDAC) and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K).
