Medical, Industry Outlook
PRNewswire | July 19, 2023
BioIVT, a global research partner and biospecimen solutions provider for drug and diagnostic development, announced today that it has acquired PrecisionMed, LLC, a leading supplier of high-quality human biological material for genetics, drug discovery, and biomarker research and in vitro diagnostics.
Based in Carlsbad, CA, PrecisionMed has been collecting biospecimens for neurology and oncology research for more than 27 years, and it has the largest private, global repository of longitudinally collected human CSF for scientific research. Its collection contains both normal and diseased CSF samples together with other matched biofluids, such as plasma, sera, and whole blood.
"We are thrilled to announce BioIVT's acquisition of PrecisionMed. Our vision is to lead the biospecimen industry through expertise and innovation and our acquisition of PrecisionMed pushes us even closer to this goal. We are excited about the possibilities that lie ahead as we expand our supply network and inventory and strengthen our capacity to meet the increasing customer demand for CSF and liquid biopsy products. Together, we will drive even greater value for our customers and further our mission of enabling smarter science," said BioIVT Chief Executive Officer Richard Haigh, PhD.
"The vision at PrecisionMed has always been centered around positively impacting patients' lives through fueling innovation and scientific discovery. We have long viewed BioIVT as the gold standard in our industry with the track record and global reach to back that up. This partnership magnifies our collective ability to reach the research community and impact patient lives. We are proud to pair our talent and resources with the world-class team at BioIVT," said PrecisionMed CEO Eric Leach.
PrecisionMed's regulatory-compliant and privacy-protected biorepository contains more than 170,000 samples of CSF, whole blood, serum, plasma, PBMCs, and urine collected under Institutional Review Board-approved clinical protocols. This extensive collection of high-quality, well annotated biospecimens was amassed from PrecisionMed's sizable network of donors and collection sites. Each biospecimen includes detailed clinical data, such as the donor's diagnosis, demographics, family medical histories, treatment responses, and disease progression.
Underscoring the value of its contributions, PrecisionMed has received more than 120 citations in scientific journals and its collections have been part of U.S. NIH grants and have formed the basis of U.S. FDA submissions and subsequent U.S. FDA clearance for diagnostics.
Looking ahead, PrecisionMed will continue to operate out of its current headquarters and maintain its existing network of donor and collection sites. Financial details about this transaction were not disclosed.
About PrecisionMed, LLC.
PrecisionMed is a leading supplier of high-quality human biological material for research, and it is the largest private global source of longitudinally collected human cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from living normal controls and diseased populations. Since 1996, its accurately annotated human biological samples have been utilized by more than 600 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and academic research organizations worldwide.
About BioIVT
BioIVT enables smarter science and accelerates medical breakthroughs by delivering high-quality personalized biospecimen solutions and research services to the life science and diagnostic industries. Recognized as an industry leader, BioIVT specializes in control and disease state samples including human and animal tissues or preparations, ADME-Tox products and research services, cell and gene therapy products, blood, and other biofluids. By combining technical expertise and exceptional customer service with unmatched access to biological specimens, BioIVT serves the research community as a trusted partner in ELEVATING SCIENCE®.
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Medical
globenewswire | September 12, 2023
Nurix Therapeutics, Inc. a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing targeted protein modulation drugs designed to treat patients with hematologic malignancies and solid tumors, today announced that it has entered into a multi-year, multi-target strategic collaboration agreement with Seagen Inc. to advance a new class of medicines called Degrader-Antibody Conjugates (DACs) for use in cancer. The collaboration between the two companies will focus on an innovative approach to combine two powerful technologies to target cancer—antibody-drug conjugation (ADC) and targeted protein degradation (TPD)—with the goal of creating drugs with new mechanisms of action as well as improved specificity and anti-cancer activity.
“By combining the tissue and tumor specificity of antibodies with highly potent and catalytic targeted degradation of cancer driver proteins, we believe that DACs may represent a next generation of cancer medicine for a wide range of solid tumors and hematologic malignancies,” said Arthur T. Sands, M.D., Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Nurix. “With Seagen, our strategic goal is to advance ADC technology to the next level to provide patients with new DAC drugs that deliver greater anti-tumor efficacy and safety compared to currently available agents.”
“The targeted protein degrader modality provides unique advantages over payloads currently employed across the ADC field,” said Gwenn M. Hansen, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Nurix. “This collaboration is a new application of our DELigase technology, and we are delighted to work with Seagen, a pioneer in the development and commercialization of ADC therapeutics, to create a new generation of drugs to fight cancer.”
Under the terms of the agreement, Nurix will receive an upfront payment of $60 million and has the potential to receive up to approximately $3.4 billion in research, development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments across multiple programs. In addition, Nurix will be eligible for mid-single to low double digit tiered royalties on future sales, and Nurix retains an option for U.S. profit sharing and co-promotion on two products arising from the collaboration. As part of the multi-year collaboration, Nurix will use its proprietary DELigase platform to develop a suite of targeted protein degraders against multiple targets nominated by Seagen that are suitable for antibody conjugation. Seagen will be responsible for conjugating these degraders to antibodies to make DACs and advancing these DAC drug candidates through preclinical and clinical development and commercialization. Given the potential to conjugate multiple antibodies to unique degraders, several DAC drugs may be developed and commercialized within this collaboration.
With the receipt of the $60 million upfront payment, Nurix expects that its existing cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, excluding any future potential milestones from collaborations, will be sufficient to fund its operating activities into the second quarter of 2025.
About Nurix Therapeutics, Inc.
Nurix Therapeutics is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of innovative medicines based on the modulation of cellular protein levels as a novel treatment approach for cancer and other challenging diseases. Leveraging extensive expertise in E3 ligases together with proprietary DNA-encoded libraries, Nurix has built DELigase, an integrated discovery platform, to identify and advance novel drug candidates targeting E3 ligases, a broad class of enzymes that can modulate proteins within the cell. Nurix’s drug discovery approach is to either harness or inhibit the natural function of E3 ligases within the ubiquitin-proteasome system to selectively decrease or increase cellular protein levels. Nurix’s wholly owned, clinical stage pipeline includes targeted protein degraders of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase, a B-cell signaling protein, and inhibitors of Casitas B-lineage lymphoma proto-oncogene B, an E3 ligase that regulates activation of multiple immune cell types including T cell and NK cells. Nurix is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
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Medical, Industry Outlook
Businesswire | August 02, 2023
Replimune Group, Inc. a clinical stage biotechnology company pioneering the development of a novel portfolio of tumor-directed oncolytic immunotherapies, and Incyte a global biopharmaceutical company, today announced a clinical trial collaboration and supply agreement to study RP1, Replimune’s lead product candidate, in combination with INCB99280, Incyte’s small molecule oral PD-L1 inhibitor.
“We are excited to enter into this collaboration with Incyte to explore the use of RP1 prior to surgery as we believe that our tumor-directed oncolytic immunotherapies could have a great impact in the neoadjuvant setting both in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) and in other cancer types, given the high rates of complete responses we’ve seen to date, and data indicating RP1 is generally very well tolerated,” said Robert Coffin, Chief Research and Development Officer of Replimune. “The unique potential of the RPx platform to induce a patient-specific anti-tumor immune response with an off-the-shelf treatment speaks to the practicality and broad potential utility of the approach, and exploring its use with Incyte’s oral PD-L1 inhibitor has the potential to improve the patient experience further.”
“We look forward to collaborating with Replimune on this study evaluating INCB99280 and RP1 in patients with CSCC. Our oral PD-L1 program has shown promising safety and efficacy in early studies thus far, and we look forward to adding to the growing body of evidence for INCB99280 and learning more about its potential to improve clinical outcomes,” said Lance Leopold, M.D., Group Vice President, Clinical Development Hematology and Oncology, Incyte.
Under the terms of the agreement, Incyte will initiate and sponsor the clinical trial of INCB99280 and RP1 in patients with high risk, resectable cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC), with the clinical trial expected to initiate in early 2024. Replimune will supply Incyte with RP1 for the study and share equally in the costs of the study.
About RP1
RP1 is Replimune’s lead oncolytic immunotherapy product candidate and is based on a proprietary new strain of herpes simplex virus engineered for robust tumor selective replication and genetically armed with a fusogenic protein (GALV-GP R-) and GM-CSF, intended to maximize tumor killing potency, the immunogenicity of tumor cell death, and the activation of a systemic anti-tumor immune response.
About INCB99280
INCB99280 is a potent and selective small molecule oral PD-L1 inhibitor, which has demonstrated promising clinical activity and safety in patients with solid tumors. INCB99280 is being evaluated in multiple Phase 2 studies as monotherapy and in combination with other antitumor agents.
About Replimune
Replimune Group, Inc.headquartered in Woburn, MA, was founded in 2015 with the mission to transform cancer treatment by pioneering the development of novel tumor-directed oncolytic immunotherapies. Replimune’s proprietary RPx platform is based on a potent HSV-1 backbone with payloads added to maximize immunogenic cell death and the induction of a systemic anti-tumor immune response. The RPx platform has a unique dual local and systemic mechanism of action (MOA) consisting of direct selective virus-mediated killing of the tumor resulting in the release of tumor derived antigens and altering of the tumor microenvironment (TME) to ignite a strong and durable systemic response. This MOA is expected to be synergistic with most established and experimental cancer treatment modalities, and, with an attractive safety profile the RPx platform has the versatility to be developed alone or combined with a variety of other treatment options.
About Incyte
Incyte is a Wilmington, Delaware-based, global biopharmaceutical company focused on finding solutions for serious unmet medical needs through the discovery, development and commercialization of proprietary therapeutics.
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