Kura Oncology, Inc. announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration accepted the company’s Investigational New Drug (IND) application to begin Phase 1 clinical testing of KO-947, its small molecule inhibitor of extracellular-signal-regulated kinases 1 and 2 (ERK1/2) as a treatment for cancers in which the mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway is dysregulated. Additionally, the company announced nomination of KO-539, an orally-available small molecule inhibitor of the menin-MLL interaction, as a development candidate for the treatment of mixed lineage leukemias, a genetically-defined subset of the two most common forms of acute leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia and acute lymphoblastic leukemia.