On June 19, 2019 Biogen Inc. (Nasdaq:BIIB) reported it will report second quarter 2019 financial results Tuesday, July 23, 2019, before the financial markets open (Press release, Biogen, JUN 19, 2019, View Source [SID1234537168]).

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Following the release of the financials, the Company will host a live webcast with Biogen management from 8:00-9:00 am ET. To access the live webcast, please go to the investors section of Biogen’s website at View Source Following the live webcast, an archived version of the call will be available on the website.

On June 19, 2019 BeiGene, Ltd. (NASDAQ: BGNE; HKEX: 06160), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing innovative molecularly-targeted and immuno-oncology drugs for the treatment of cancer, reported results from two ongoing clinical studies of its investigational BTK inhibitor zanubrutinib in patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) in two presentations at the 15thInternational Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML), taking place June 18-22, 2019 in Lugano, Switzerland (Press release, BeiGene, JUN 19, 2019, View Sourcenews-releases/news-release-details/beigene-announces-updated-results-two-ongoing-clinical-trials" target="_blank" title="View Sourcenews-releases/news-release-details/beigene-announces-updated-results-two-ongoing-clinical-trials" rel="nofollow">View Source [SID1234537167]).

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"With longer follow-up, we continue to be encouraged by the clinical results of zanubrutinib in patients with MCL. The deep, durable responses shown in these two presentations at ICML provide additional support for our new drug application in MCL in China, which is currently under priority review," said Jane Huang, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Hematology, at BeiGene. "We hope that zanubrutinib will become an impactful treatment for patients with MCL and other B-cell malignancies."

Summary of Updated Clinical Results from the Pivotal Phase 2 Trial Being Conducted in China

This single-arm, open-label, multi-center, pivotal Phase 2 trial of zanubrutinib as a monotherapy in patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) MCL (clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT03206970) is being conducted in China, and enrolled 86 patients who had received a median of two (1-4) prior lines of therapy. Patients were treated with zanubrutinib, dosed at 160 mg orally twice-daily (BID). The primary endpoint of the trial was overall response rate (ORR) assessed by independent review committee (IRC) using PET-based imaging according to the Lugano Classification 2014.

As of the February 15, 2019 data cutoff, 52 patients (60.5%) remained on study treatment. The median follow-up time for patients enrolled in the trial was 18.4 months (0.3-23.5). Results included:

The investigator-assessed (INV) ORR was 83.7% (72/86); the complete response (CR) rate was 77.9% (67/86) and the partial response (PR) rate was 5.8% (5/86). At an earlier data cutoff in March 2018 (8.2 months median follow-up), the ORR, CR and PR were 84.7%, 72.9%, and 11.8% per investigator assessment, and 83.5%, 58.8%, and 24.7% per IRC assessment, respectively;
The 15-month progression-free survival (PFS) by investigator was estimated at 72.1%; median PFS follow-up was 19.1 months (0.0-22.3);
With 16.4 months median follow-up (2.3-19.5), the duration of response (DOR) by investigator at 15 months was 67.4%;
Zanubrutinib tolerability was generally consistent with previous reports of zanubrutinib treatment in patients with various B-cell malignancies. The majority of treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) were grade 1 or 2 in severity, with the most frequently reported being neutrophil count decreased (44.2%), upper respiratory tract infection (34.9%), rash (33.7%), white blood cell count decrease (31.4%), and platelet count decrease (25.6%);
Grade ≧3 TEAEs were reported in 36 patients (41.9%), with the most frequently reported being neutrophil count decrease (18.6%), lung infection (7.0%), white blood cell count decrease (5.8%), and anemia (5.8%);
Five patients (5.8%) had TEAEs leading to death (one case each of pneumonia, cerebral hemorrhage, traffic accident, and two cases of death with unknown cause); and
Among TEAEs of special interest for BTK inhibitors, hypertension was reported in 13 patients (15.1%), petechiae/purpura/contusion in four patients (4.7%), and major hemorrhage in three patients (3.5%); no cases of atrial fibrillation/flutter, secondary primary malignancy, or tumor lysis syndrome were reported in this trial.
"Zanubrutinib demonstrated high activity in patients with R/R MCL, with 84% of patients achieving objective response and now an investigator-assessed complete response rate observed at 78%. The responses achieved have been generally well-tolerated as well," said Yuqin Song, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Medical Oncology, Deputy Director of the Lymphoma Department at Peking University Cancer Hospital in China, and the presenting author of the pivotal Phase 2 trial in Chinese patients.

Summary of Updated Clinical Results from the Global Phase 1/2 Trial

This open-label, multi-center Phase 1/2 trial of zanubrutinib as a monotherapy (clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT02343120) in patients with different subtypes of B-cell malignancies, including MCL, is being conducted in the United States, Australia, Italy, South Korea, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

As of the December 13, 2018 data cut-off, 53 patients with treatment naïve (TN, n=16) or R/R (n=37) MCL have been enrolled in the trial and the median follow-up time was 15.4 months (0.1-38.2). Forty-eight patients (all 37 R/R and 11 TN) were evaluable for efficacy with median follow-up time of 16.7 months (1.6-38.2) in this analysis, per the Lugano 2014 Classification. At the time of the data cutoff, 27 patients (13 TN and 14 R/R) remained on study treatment. Updated results included:

The investigator-assessed ORR was 85.4% (41/48); the CR rate was 29.2% (14/48) and the PR rate was 56.3% (27/48). The majority of patients were assessed via CT-scan; PET scan was optional per trial protocol;
The median DOR was 16.2 months (0.03-28.2) for all patients. The median PFS for patients with R/R MCL was 17.3 months;
The majority of adverse events (AEs) were grade 1 or 2 in severity. The most frequently reported AEs included contusion (39.6%), diarrhea (34.0%), upper respiratory tract infection (26.4%), constipation (22.6%), fatigue (22.6%), and rash (18.9%);
Grade ≧3 AEs were reported in 54.7% patients, with the most frequent being anemia (9.4%), myalgia (5.7%), cellulitis (5.7%), pleural effusion (5.7%), and pneumonia (5.7%);
Discontinuation due to AEs occurred in 18.9% patients with two determined to be related to study drug (one case each of peripheral edema and subdural hematoma); and
There were five deaths due to AEs, which were all determined by the investigators to be unrelated to zanubrutinib treatment.
"The updated results from this Phase 1/2 global trial suggested that zanubrutinib was generally well-tolerated and highly active in patients with MCL. These data support further evaluation of zanubrutinib in late-stage clinical studies," commented Constantine Tam, M.D., Disease Group Lead for Low Grade Lymphoma and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center and Director of Hematology at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Australia, and lead author of the poster presentation of results from the global Phase 1/2 trial.

Mid-2019 Clinical Data Update Conference Call and Webcast Information:

BeiGene will host a conference call and webcast on Thursday, June 20 at 8:00 a.m. EDT. Investors and analysts are invited to join the conference call using the following dial-in information:
U.S. Toll-Free: +1 (844) 461-9930
U.S. Toll: +1 (478) 219-0535
Hong Kong Toll-Free: +852 800 279 19250
China Toll-Free: +86 800 914 686
Conference ID: 1790069

A live webcast of the conference call can be accessed from the investors section of BeiGene’s website at View Source or View Source An archived replay will be available two hours after the event for 90 days.

About Mantle Cell Lymphoma

Lymphoma is a diverse group of malignancies that originates from B-, T- or NK- cells. Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is typically an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) that arises from B-cells originating in the "mantle zone." In 2015, about 88,200 new cases and 52,100 cancer deaths of lymphoma were expected in Mainland China, making it the 12th most common cancer and the 11th leading cause of cancer death.1 In the United States, about 70,800 new cases of NHL were expected in 2014, with MCL representing about six percent (about 4,200 cases) of all new cases of NHL in the United States.2 Mantle cell lymphoma usually has a poor prognosis, with a median survival of three to four years, although occasionally patients may have an indolent course.3 Frequently, mantle cell lymphoma is diagnosed at a later stage of disease.

About Zanubrutinib

Zanubrutinib (BGB-3111) is an investigational small molecule inhibitor of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) discovered by BeiGene scientists that is currently being evaluated in a broad pivotal clinical program globally as a monotherapy and in combination with other therapies to treat various B-cell malignancies.

Clinical trials of zanubrutinib include a fully-enrolled, global Phase 3 clinical trial in patients with Waldenström macroglobulinemia (WM) comparing zanubrutinib to ibrutinib, currently the only approved BTK inhibitor for WM; a global Phase 3 clinical trial in patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)/small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL); a pivotal Phase 2 trial in patients with relapsed/refractory (R/R) follicular lymphoma in combination with GAZYVA (obinutuzumab); a Phase 3 trial comparing zanubrutinib to ibrutinib in patients with R/R CLL/SLL; and a global Phase 1 trial. In China, BeiGene has completed two pivotal Phase 2 clinical trials of zanubrutinib in patients with R/R MCL and R/R CLL/SLL and the enrollment in the pivotal Phase 2 clinical trials in patients with WM.

Zanubrutinib has been granted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Fast Track designation for the treatment of patients with WM, and Breakthrough Therapy designation for the treatment of adult patients with MCL who have received at least one prior therapy. The New Drug Applications (NDAs) in China for R/R MCL and R/R CLL/SLL have been accepted by the China National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) and granted priority review. BeiGene plans to submit its first NDA in the U.S. for zanubrutinib in 2019 or early 2020.

On June 19, 2019 Gilead Sciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: GILD) and Nurix Therapeutics, Inc., a company discovering drugs that harness the body’s natural process to control protein levels, reported a global strategic collaboration to discover, develop and commercialize a pipeline of innovative targeted protein degradation drugs for patients with cancer and other challenging diseases (Press release, Gilead Sciences, JUN 19, 2019, View Source [SID1234537166]).

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This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: View Source

Dysregulated and/or mutated proteins play a central role in the development and progression of many human diseases. Nurix’s technology platform is focused on the manipulation of the ubiquitin system and its component E3 ligases, the key enzymes responsible for controlling protein levels in human cells.

Under the multi-year collaboration, Nurix will utilize its proprietary drug discovery platform to identify novel agents that utilize E3 ligases to induce degradation of specified drug targets and Gilead will have an option to license drug candidates directed to up to five targets resulting from the work. Nurix will retain the option to co-develop and co-detail up to two programs in the United States. The collaboration excludes Nurix’s lead degradation program, for which Nurix retains all rights.

"There are many molecular targets involved in disease pathways that have traditionally been challenging to manipulate using conventional approaches," said John McHutchison, A.O., M.D., Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Research and Development, Gilead Sciences. "Nurix’s innovative protein degradation discovery technology provides Gilead with a new strategy to interrogate these drug targets, as we continue to build a pipeline of small molecule therapeutics for patients with cancers and other diseases."

"Gilead is an ideal partner to help us bring potentially transformative treatments to patients," said Arthur T. Sands, M.D., Ph.D., Nurix’s Chief Executive Officer. "This partnership expands our ability to build our pipeline of novel targeted protein degradation drugs based on our established expertise in the field of protein homeostasis, while we continue to independently advance our lead programs into the clinic."

Under the terms of the agreement, Nurix will receive an upfront payment of $45 million and will be eligible to receive up to approximately $2.3 billion in total additional payments based on the successful completion of certain research, pre-clinical, clinical, regulatory and commercialization milestones as well as up to low double-digit tiered royalties on net sales. For those programs that Nurix opts in to co-develop and co-detail, the parties will split development costs as well as profits and losses 50/50 for the U.S., and Nurix will be eligible to receive royalties on ex-U.S. sales and reduced milestone payments.

On June 19, 2019 Pacira BioSciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: PCRX) reported the appointment of Max Reinhardt as the company’s president (Press release, Pacira Pharmaceuticals, JUN 19, 2019, View Source [SID1234537164]). Mr. Reinhardt will report to Dave Stack, chairman and chief executive officer of Pacira, and be responsible for overseeing all commercial and medical affairs functions at Pacira. Mr. Stack will maintain leadership of the Pacira commercial and corporate strategy.

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Mr. Reinhardt was most recently Vice President of Marketing for DePuy Synthes, part of the Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices Companies, where he was accountable for $5.5 billion in revenue from its comprehensive portfolio of solutions for medical specialties including joint reconstruction, trauma, craniomaxillofacial, spinal surgery and sports medicine. Mr. Reinhardt also led the DePuy Synthes alliance strategy, which included managing its partnership with Pacira.

"We are delighted to officially welcome Max to the Pacira team. Having worked closely with him throughout our partnership with Johnson & Johnson, I am confident that Max’s vast experience successfully commercializing products across a variety of surgical specialties will be of great benefit to Pacira as we continue to drive robust EXPAREL growth and integrate the ioveraº system into our commercial offering," said Dave Stack, chairman and chief executive officer of Pacira. "Max’s commitment to reducing or eliminating opioid exposure directly aligns with our corporate mission and we are excited to add his expertise to our leadership team as we work towards becoming a premier provider of innovative non-opioid pain management and regenerative health solutions."

"Working with Pacira over the last two years, I have seen firsthand the accelerating role of EXPAREL as the foundation of opioid-sparing pain management protocols," said Mr. Reinhardt. "Looking ahead, I believe there is tremendous potential for EXPAREL-based enhanced recovery pathways to optimize patient outcomes in both orthopedic and soft tissue surgeries, particularly when considering the ways in which anesthesiologists are driving change by implementing EXPAREL-based regional approaches as the core of non-opioid multimodal strategies. With iovera° we have the unique opportunity to solidify our leadership in non-opioid pain management by offering healthcare providers a total procedural solution for low- or no-opioid total knee arthroplasty procedures. I am looking forward to working with this talented team and expect this transition will be seamless."

Mr. Reinhardt has more than 20 years of medical device experience highlighted by increasing sales and marketing leadership roles. Prior to serving as Vice President of Marketing at DePuy Synthes, Mr. Reinhardt was Director of Sales and Marketing for DePuy Spine and Vice President of US Sales for DePuy Spine. In 2011, he was named Vice President, Worldwide Marketing, a position in which he played a key role in the acquisition and integration of Synthes Spine. In 2012, he was named Worldwide President, DePuy Synthes Spine, and led the spine business through the first two years of integration. Prior to Johnson & Johnson, Mr. Reinhardt served in sales leadership roles at both Olympus KeyMed and STERIS Corporation in the UK.

Mr. Reinhardt earned his Higher National Diploma at Sparsholt College of Agriculture in the U.K. and his Master of Science degree in marketing from the University of Hull, England

On June 19, 2019 Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SRNE, "Sorrento") reported that its Chairman and CEO, Dr. Henry Ji will be discussing the progress made, including innovative higher potency Dimeric Antigen Receptor ("DAR") technology and allogeneic knock-out/knock-in ("KOKI") cell therapy manufacturing advances related to its CD38 immunotherapies at upcoming industry conferences, investor conferences and investor meetings (Press release, Sorrento Therapeutics, JUN 19, 2019, View Source [SID1234537163]). The reference presentation in support of those update discussions has been uploaded to the Sorrento investor relations website and was filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") on a Current Report on Form 8-K.

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Key progress update areas that will be discussed include:

Clinical Proof-of-concept Study for Anti-CD38 Autologous CAR-T Cell Therapy

The Sorrento suite of anti-CD38 immunotherapies is based on a fully human anti-CD38 antibody mined from the Sorrento G-MAB antibody library. This antibody has demonstrated unique functional binding properties, which make it a promising candidate for therapeutic applications.

Dr. Evren Alici’s research team at the Karolinska Institutet and Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, has generated preclinical data demonstrating that this anti-CD38 antibody can be effectively used in chimeric antigen receptors ("CAR-T") and antibody-drug conjugates ("ADC") retaining its anti-tumor activity against multiple myeloma cells obtained from patients who had previously failed anti-CD38 therapy with daratumumab (Darzalex).

The current anti-CD38 CAR construct has also enabled successful manufacturing of autologous CAR-T cells using retrovirus-based cGMP manufacturing processes. The CAR-T cells obtained in this traditional approach have been successfully administered to multiple myeloma patients. Patient recruitment is currently ongoing at two clinical sites and additional sites will be opened in the second half of 2019.

"Our CD38 CAR-T program remains an active clinical stage trial with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma ("RRMM") patients being dosed and recruitment proceeding as expected. We are particularly proud of our production site at Sorrento in San Diego producing the clinical CD38-CAR-T cells used in our study," stated Dr. Jerome Zeldis, Chief Medical Officer of Sorrento. "Given the high level of interest in our program, we look forward to publicly discussing our study data later this year."

Next-Generation Anti-CD38 Non-viral KOKI Allogeneic DAR-T Cell Therapy

The key components/steps of current state-of-the-art CAR-T cell therapy programs are: a) CAR architecture; b) viral-based transduction of the CAR construct into the T cells; and c) using the patients as their own source for these autologous T cells. Sorrento has developed disruptive next-gen technology platforms to address each of these components/steps. The research and development team at Sorrento has pioneered an allogeneic ("off-the-shelf") cell therapy technology (KOKI DAR-T) that utilizes healthy donor T cells and genetically ("non-virally") modifies them with a novel DAR construct (see the public presentation accompanying this press release).

Our proprietary design of the dimeric antigen receptor ("DAR") is based on utilizing the complete antigen-binding fragment (Fab) of the parental antibody. It is generally accepted that Fabs more closely mimic the functional and biophysical properties of natural antibodies. Utilizing the same antibody binding domain sequence, we have compared CAR constructs to their corresponding DAR constructs. Our data showed that the DAR-T cells exhibited a higher cytotoxicity against target-expressing tumor cells as compared to CAR-T cells. In preclinical mouse models, the DAR-T cells demonstrated increased anti-tumor potency as well.

Our non-viral KOKI technology may offer several potential benefits over existing virus-based technology, such as transgene-encoding lentiviruses or retrovirus, to introduce antigen receptor constructs into pre-screened healthy donor (allogeneic) T cells. These potential advantages of our non-viral KOKI technology include: a) site-specific integration of transgenes into a pre-selected locus in the T cell genome; b) enhanced clonal expansion of the DAR-T cells; and c) streamlined method for transgene construct production without need for laborious and time-consuming virus production, release and validation processes, resulting in a shorter research and development timelines for IND-enabling activities.

Another major drawback of current CAR-T therapy is the reliance on patients’ own T cells (autologous therapy). This leads to delays in treatment (vein-to-vein time of several weeks) and substantial manufacturing costs due to the individual processing of each patient sample. By utilizing healthy donor T cells as the starting point in our KOKI DAR-T cell technology these concerns can be effectively addressed.

Sorrento has developed a robust manufacturing process in which these donor-derived KOKI DAR-T cells are expanded and purified resulting in the production of hundreds of KOKI allogeneic DAR-T cell doses per manufacturing run from a single healthy donor in about 2 weeks. This has the potential to substantially reduce cost of goods sold ("COGS") and expand access to cell therapy to patients. This KOKI DAR-T manufacturing process will enable Sorrento with its current manufacturing staff to produce in its existing San Diego cGMP facilities the non-viral CD38 DAR-T cells for "off-the-shelf" treatments for thousands of cancer patients per year. Notably, allogeneic cell therapies will enable the execution of global trials and potential commercialization as the shipping logistics and distribution will be simplified. In addition, certain countries’ restrictions on patient cell shipping and processing currently hampering CAR-T cell therapy studies will not prevent patients from receiving KOKI DAR-T cell treatments.

"Our first clinical program will be KOKI allogeneic CD38 DAR-T cell therapy. Preclinical data and clinical trial designs will be shared and discussed with the clinical and scientific community as well as investors once the IND has been accepted and the clinical study initiated", said Dr. Henry Ji, Chairman and CEO of Sorrento. "We are currently applying our KOKI allogeneic DAR technology to our cell therapy program pipeline for multiple hematological and solid tumor indications, including: multiple myeloma, lymphoma, liver cancer, sarcoma, pancreatic cancer and glioma."

Anti-CD38 Antibody-Drug Conjugate STI-6129

In keeping with off-the-shelf immunotherapy strategy, Sorrento is developing STI-6129 (or LNDS1001 for China), an anti-CD38 ADC, for which we plan the IND submission in the second half of 2019. Preclinical studies have demonstrated strong anti-tumor activity. Notably, the toxin payload of the ADC is based on our proprietary tubulin inhibitor Duostatin5. The required toxicology studies of the ADC showed a promising safety profile. The manufacturing of the GMP drug substance of the ADC was successfully completed at our facility in Suzhou, China. The clinical drug product will be manufactured at Bioserv, our wholly-owned San Diego-based fill/finish service provider. We anticipate initiation of clinical studies in hematological malignancies and potentially non-oncology indications by the end of 2019.

"In total, all of our anti-CD38 immunotherapies have been discovered, developed and manufactured in-house by our outstanding R&D and manufacturing team members. This demonstrates the unique and efficient "turn-key" approach as we are able to perform with our immunotherapy R&D teams utilizing internal expertise and capabilities without being dependent on external service providers," said Dr. Henry Ji, Chairman and CEO of Sorrento. "We believe that this anti-CD38 therapy suite illustrates the depth and breadth of the disruptive technology platforms we have to attack diseases with high unmet medical need from different angles. Each modality has its unique strengths but when properly sequenced in the clinic by our outstanding clinical development team, we believe substantial benefit potential can be provided to patients, their caretakers and the medical community. We see our CD38 Therapeutics business unit as a model for our vision and will apply this approach to a variety of therapeutic targets, including CD19, BCMA, and CEA."