About us

At Unguard Therapeutics, we are advancing a new generation of precision oncology by targeting one of cancer’s most exploitable vulnerabilities: Homologous Recombination Deficiency (HRD). Found across multiple tumor types, particularly in female cancers, HRD disrupts DNA repair mechanisms, forcing cancer cells to rely on alternative survival pathways. This dependency creates a powerful opportunity for targeted therapeutic intervention.

Today, PARP inhibitors (PARPi) represent the standard of care for HRD-positive patients. However, clinical resistance and suboptimal durability highlight the need for next-generation approaches.

Unguard Therapeutics is addressing this gap through a synthetic lethality-driven platform, developing first-in-class, differentiated inhibitors designed to expand and enhance treatment options beyond PARP inhibition. Based on discoveries from Institut Curie, our proprietary programs are engineered to selectively target HRD-driven tumors, with a focus on improving efficacy, overcoming PARPi resistance and broadening patient benefit.

Our strategy is grounded in deep integration of scientific innovation, clinical insight, and strategic execution. By combining expertise across drug discovery, translational biology, and clinical development, along with a collaborative approach to partnerships, we aim to accelerate the delivery of transformative therapies to patients.

The team

Unguard Therapeutics was founded as a spin-off from Institut Curie by Raphaël Ceccaldi (Chief Scientific Officer), an expert in homologous recombination repair and synthetic lethality, and Patrick Korman (Chief Executive Offier), former VP International at Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Myriad Genetics, where he contributed to the development of the myChoice HRD test. Unguard is also supported by the Women Cancer Institute along with leading key opinion leaders in ovarian and breast cancer, strengthening its efforts in early drug and clinical development.