On May 26, 2020 Debiopharm (www.debiopharm.com), a Swiss biopharmaceutical company, reported the successful exit and acquisition of their investment portfolio company Kaiku Health, a Helsinki-based digital therapeutics company specializing in improving the quality of life of cancer patients (Press release, Debiopharm, MAY 26, 2020, View Source [SID1234558510]). The acquisition made by the publicly traded, Stockholm-based company Elekta, one of the global market leaders in precision radiation medicine, enables a reach to over 4,000 oncology centers managing thousands of cancer patients worldwide with Elekta’s software suite, extending the company’s digital health offering.

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In 2018, Debiopharm became the Series A lead investor in Kaiku Health in order to support the active adoption of their technology by hospitals, clinics, and pharmaceutical companies. The investment decision aligned with Debiopharm’s vision is to invest in start-ups that change the way that patients are treated and the way that drugs are developed. The corporate fund specializes in disruptive digital health investments while actively helping the companies bring their technologies to a clinical reality.

"It’s really thrilling to see our start-up investment companies grow and move to the next step of reaching more of the patients who can benefit from their innovation," explained Tanja Dowe, CEO of Debiopharm Innovation Fund SA and former Chairwoman of Kaiku Health. "The growing patient base through Elekta will strengthen Kaiku Health’s capabilities to develop patient-centric and outcome-driven solutions for cancer patients, in some cases in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies. In the era of precision medicine, these outcomes play an important role for the development of pharmaceutical therapies."

Debiopharm remains an active investor in digital health start-ups around the world. As the chairwoman of the board, Debiopharm Innovation Fund SA CEO, Tanja Dowe provided strategic and practical guidance to sustain and grow the start-up’s network, pharmaceutical know-how and international impact.

Kaiku Health has been particularly implicated in immunooncology, where faster detection of predictive symptoms can lead to improved toxicity management. The platform offers cancer patients the ability to stay better connected to their medical team during and after therapy. This is accomplished via a user-friendly app that captures the experience and symptoms of patients through basic health-related questions. The patient-reported information allows caregivers to assess the effectiveness of treatments promptly, to detect and treat health issues early and to adapt the treatment regimen immediately if necessary and can in addition be used to improve clinical study experience. Research shows that digital monitoring can have a beneficial effect on patient health comparable to that of a new medication, revealing the potential impact of this affordable, easy-to-use technology.

"Personalized digital health intervention to every cancer patient – this has been our vision from the very beginning. Measuring what matters to patients is paramount for value-based healthcare," expressed Lauri Sippola, CEO of Kaiku Health. "We are grateful for Debiopharm’s active support in developing our digital therapeutics pipeline as our Series A lead investor in 2018. We are encouraged that through this acquisition by Elekta, that now even more patients can have the possibility to receive more personalized cancer care through Kaiku technology."

Recently, Kaiku Health’s interventions have also been implemented to support the efficient monitoring of COVID-19 patients, including a specific symptom monitoring module in co-operation with the leading Swiss university hospital group, the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG).

On May 26, 2020 Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: RIGL) reported that Raul Rodriguez, the company’s president and chief executive officer, is scheduled to present a company overview at the Jefferies Virtual Healthcare Conference on Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time (Press release, Rigel, MAY 26, 2020, View Source [SID1234558508]).

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To access the live and subsequently archived webcast, go to the Investor Relations section of the company’s website at www.rigel.com. Please connect to Rigel’s website several minutes prior to the start of the live webcast to ensure adequate time for any software download that may be necessary.

On May 26, 2020 Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving science, and Biognosys, a leading developer of next-generation proteomics solutions, reported that they are continuing their collaboration to advance data independent acquisition (DIA) mass spectrometry-based workflows (Press release, Thermo Fisher Scientific, MAY 26, 2020, View Source [SID1234558507]). Together, the companies have developed a workflow for accurate and flexible label-free protein quantitation and proteome profiling in plasma matrices.

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The introduction of Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris 480 mass spectrometer and new Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris 240 mass spectrometer, in combination with the Biognosys PQ500 kit, has driven the delivery of a streamlined, simplified workflow that provides increased depth of coverage and sensitivity for analysis of blood-derived samples. In addition, the novel FAIMS DIA method, enabled with Thermo Scientific FAIMS Pro interface, uses Field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometry (FAIMS) to fractionate ionized species before analysis by the mass spectrometer, resulting in enhanced selectivity, higher reproducibility and greater proteome coverage in DIA analyses.

Quantitative analyses can be further refined using the Biognosys PQ500 kit to implement Thermo Scientific SureQuant Targeted Assay Kits, enabling the rapid quantification of 500 plasma proteins. The single workflow enables efficient development and deployment of targeted methods to streamline the discovery of new insights through quantitative proteomics in translational and clinical laboratories.

"Researchers are delving into the proteome more than ever before, opening doors into potential new therapies and study areas, but revealing complex analytical challenges to overcome," said Daniel Lopez-Ferrer, senior manager, proteomics, Thermo Fisher Scientific. "Through our ongoing collaboration with Biognosys, we are now able to offer the FAIMS-DIA and SureQuant workflows which, used in conjunction with the Biognosys PQ500 kit, simplify experimental processes."

Lukas Reiter, chief technology officer, Biognosys, said, "Our continued work with Thermo Fisher aligns with Biognosys’ overall mission of transforming life sciences with the next generation of quantitative proteomics solutions. With the Thermo Scientific FAIMS Pro interface coupled with the Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris 480 mass spectrometer, Biognosys can profile more than 10,000 proteins from the human HeLa cell line with single-shot FAIMS-DIA. This corresponds to an estimated 80 percent of its expressed proteome."

Thermo Fisher Scientific will showcase outcomes of the collaboration and its newest products and software solutions in a company-hosted virtual event, vLC-MS.com, from May 26-28, 2020, and at the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) Reboot Program, from June 1-12, 2020.

On May 26, 2020 PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: PTCT) reported that management will present a company overview at the Jefferies Virtual Healthcare Conference on Tuesday, June 2nd at 1:00 p.m. ET (Press release, PTC Therapeutics, MAY 26, 2020, View Source [SID1234558506]).

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The presentation will be webcast live on the Events and Presentations page under the investor relations section of PTC Therapeutics’ website at www.ptcbio.com and will be archived for 30 days following the presentation. It is recommended that users connect to PTC’s website several minutes prior to the start of the webcast to ensure a timely connection.

On May 26, 2020 Epic Sciences, Inc. reported that it will present three abstracts at the 2020 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) (Free ASCO Whitepaper) Virtual Scientific Program to be held from May 29 – June 2, 2020 (Press release, Epic Sciences, MAY 26, 2020, View Source [SID1234558505]). Epic Sciences will present new data demonstrating the role of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in cancer prognosis and treatment outcomes.

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"These presentations underscore the unique value CTCs have in the care of patients with advanced prostate cancer," said Rick Wenstrup, MD, chief medical officer at Epic Sciences. "New data demonstrates the clear prognostic value of CTC enumeration measured by Epic’s platform; CTC counts were found to be a better predictor of one-year survival relative to other common blood-based measures including Lactate-dehydrogenase (LDH), Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and Alkaline-phosphatase (ALK)."

"The ability of the Epic platform to delineate clinically meaningful CTC heterogeneity is further demonstrated in this case with the identification of small-cell neuroendocrine-like CTC subtypes that have selective sensitivity to platinum agents in patients with advanced prostate cancer, as well as new data that shows the unique advantages of CTC single-cell genomic analysis in identifying alterations such as BRCA2 copy loss compared to tissue-based testing," said Howard Scher, MD, Chief of Genitourinary Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

The data presented at this year’s ASCO (Free ASCO Whitepaper) Scientific Program complement the extensive ongoing clinical research in prostate cancer. Epic Sciences’ commercialized prostate cancer test for nuclear-localized AR-V7 assists physicians in choosing between androgen receptor-directed therapies or taxane chemotherapy for their patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Epic’s test for AR-V7 is offered by its partner, Exact Sciences, under the brand Oncotype DX AR-V7 Nucleus Detect. This test is Epic’s first test that is commercially available and reimbursed by Medicare.

Epic Science’s proprietary rare-cell-detection platform can detect one cell in 10 million cells to provide contextual analysis with spatial, morphological, cellular and genomic information. Today Epic assists more than 40 global biopharmaceutical partners by applying its unbiased, enrichment-free approach to identify and characterize circulating tumor cells in the blood samples of subjects of dozens of clinical trials across a wide range of drugs.

The following are details of the abstract virtual sessions, which are also available at www.asco.org and www.epicsciences.com.

Abstract 5531/Poster 112: Genitourinary Cancer Poster Session: Prevalence and tissue concordance of BRCA2 copy number loss evaluated by single-cell, shallow whole-genome sequencing of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).

Abstract 5571/Poster 152: Genitourinary Cancer Poster Session: Clinical significance of CTC enumeration on the Epic Sciences platform in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients treated with AR signaling inhibitors (ARSi).

Abstract 5572/Poster 153: Genitourinary Cancer Poster Session: Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) with small-cell like pathology are prevalent in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) and show selective pharmacodynamic reductions in patients treated with platinum but not ARSI or taxane.