On January 29, 2020 Pulse Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLSE) (the "Company"), a novel bioelectric medicine company, reported the presentation of its scientific study evaluating the clinical and histologic response of Nano-Pulse Stimulation (NPS) technology in treating challenging cases of nodular Basal Cell Carcinoma (nBCC) (Press release, Pulse Biosciences, JAN 29, 2020, View Source [SID1234553668]). These results are to be presented at the 22nd annual IMCAS (International Master Course on Aging Skin) World Congress, the gathering of international experts in dermatology, plastic surgery and aging science, taking place at Palais des Congrès, Paris, France, from January 30th to February 1st 2020.

Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:

Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing

                  Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!

Dermatologist Girish Munavalli, MD, MHS, FACMS, a prominent skin cancer surgeon in Charlotte, NC, will present results that demonstrate the unique ability of NPS technology to eliminate tumor cells in nodular BCCs while sparing surrounding healthy tissue. Results will be supported by clinical photos that display a more favorable cosmetic outcome possible in a short amount of time with reduced potential for scar formation as compared to current surgical excision.

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common form of skin cancer worldwide. The nodular BCC subtype reported in this study comprises 60% of all basal cell carcinomas. For these deep nodular lesions, the current standard of care is surgical excision, which can lead to large, permanent scars.

"Early findings show promising potential for NPS technology as a new treatment option for nodular BCC. NPS technology has demonstrated equivalent therapeutic benefit and the added benefit of superior cosmetic outcomes compared to more destructive skin cancer treatment modalities, such as excision and curettage," said Dr. Munavalli of Dermatology, Laser & Vein Specialists of the Carolinas, Charlotte, NC.

"We are enthusiastic about the impressive results Nano-Pulse Stimulation technology is producing in Basal Cell Carcinomas and are focused on rapidly advancing its development program across multiple clinical applications," said Darrin Uecker, President and CEO of Pulse Biosciences. "Our presence at IMCAS represents the initial step in our commitment to international commercialization, which aims to extend our long-term growth platform and leverage the value proposition of our technology’s ability to clear benign and malignant lesions. "

Scheduled scientific presentation at IMCAS World Congress 2020

Podium Presentation: "Histologic and Clinical Comparison of Scar Cosmesis Using Nano-Pulse Stimulation vs Traditional Surgical Treatments of Basal Cell Carcinoma," by Dr. Girish S. MUNAVALLI, Assistant Professor at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine – Department of Dermatology and Medical Director and Founder of Dermatology, Laser & Vein Specialists of the Carolinas, Charlotte NC.

Details: 30 January 2020, at 12:06pm in Room 143, Level 1
Skin Cancer and Photorejuvenation: The Impossible Equation: Session S011, S012
Chaired by: Dr. Mathew Avram and Pr. Merete Haedersdal.

On January 29, 2020 The Board of Directors of McKesson Corporation (NYSE:MCK) reported that declared a regular dividend of 41 cents per share of common stock (Press release, McKesson, JAN 29, 2020, View Source [SID1234553667]). The dividend will be payable on April 1, 2020, to stockholders of record on March 2, 2020.

Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:

Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing

                  Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!

On January 29, 2020 A surgical team at The Chaim Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer, Israel, with coordination by US Medical Innovations, LLC (USMI), reported that successfully used the Canady HeliosTM Cold Plasma Scalpel (CHCPS) for a rare advanced reoccurring inoperable retroperitoneal sarcoma (Press release, US Medical Innovations, JAN 29, 2020, View Source [SID1234553666]).

Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:

Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing

                  Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!

CHCPS is new cold atmospheric plasma device that specifically eradicates microscopic remnants of cancer cells while sparing normal cells and tissue.

After a one-time pre-market Humanitarian Compassionate-Use Exemption from the Investigational Review Board at Sheba Medical Center, a surgical team successfully used the Canady HeliosTM Cold Plasma Scalpel (CHCPS) for the selective killing of cancerous tissue during the groundbreaking surgery. The surgery was performed on August 20, 2019 on a 33-year-old man with a rare inoperable Retroperitoneal Sarcoma. The patient was first diagnosed at age 20 and the tumor had reoccurred twice prior to this surgery.

Retroperitoneal sarcoma occurs in the retroperitoneum, the area behind the peritoneum. The peritoneum is a thin tissue lining of the abdominal area that covers the abdominal organs. The surgery entailed removing the tumor and its attachment to adjacent tissue in the abdomen. Afterwards, the patient received intra-operative radiation therapy (IORT) at the surgical resected site; cold plasma was subsequently sprayed over the surgical site. The surgery was successful, and the patient returned back to the U.S. in September 2019.

A multidisciplinary group of healthcare professionals and physicians from Sheba Medical Center and research scientists, and engineers from USMI collaborated to achieve this successful outcome. The complex surgery was performed by Aviram Nissum, M.D. Chief of General and Oncological surgery at Sheba Medical Center.

USMI CEO, Chief Science Officer and Surgeon, Jerome Canady, M.D., "USMI and its sister companies are quite excited about the excellent outcome for the patient." We are equally enthusiastic that CHCPS is approved by the FDA for a multi-center phase I clinical trial Investigational Device Exemption (IDE #G190195). Clinical trials will occur at Sheba Medical Center, Tel HaShomer, Israel and Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois starting February 2020.

On January 29, 2020 The American Childhood Cancer Organization (ACCO) reported that is launching "Stamp Out Childhood Cancer," a public appeal campaign to demonstrate broad, national support for the creation of a new United States Postal Service (USPS) semipostal stamp to help fund the fight against childhood cancer (Press release, American Childhood Cancer Organization, JAN 29, 2020, View Source [SID1234553665]). The campaign calls on the public to write and send letters of support for the stamp to USPS, the final step in the process of applying for a USPS semipostal stamp.

Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:

Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing

                  Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!

The stamp is the latest innovative effort by ACCO to raise much needed resources to combat childhood cancer, the leading cause of death by disease for children in the U.S.

"Every year in the United States approximately 16,000 American children are diagnosed with cancer," said Ruth Hoffman, ACCO CEO. "While we have seen many advancements in adult cancer treatment, the majority of children with cancer continue to be treated with drugs that were approved by the FDA more than 50 years ago. A childhood cancer semipostal stamp would support the research we need to increase survival rates and reduce late effects from toxic treatments. Through ‘Stamp Out Childhood Cancer,’ we are asking all Americans to join ACCO and tell USPS that they want a stamp to benefit children and adolescents fighting cancer."

ACCO has completed the official application for the creation of the childhood cancer stamp including filing a formal proposal with the USPS Office of Stamp Services and securing the required support from an executive agency—the National Institutes of Health—which would collect the monies raised by the stamp and disburse the funds appropriately for research support.

ACCO’s stamp application is now in the final phase, which requires a demonstration of broad, national enthusiasm for the childhood cancer semipostal stamp in the form of supportive letters to USPS. ACCO is calling on the public to write to USPS in one of three ways:

1. Visiting www.acco.org/stamp to customize and sign a letter, which ACCO will print and deliver to USPS.

2. Emailing letters to ACCO at [email protected], which ACCO will print and deliver to USPS.

3. Sending letters of support for the childhood cancer stamp directly to

Office of Stamp Services
Attn: Semipostal Discretionary Program
475 L’Enfant Plaza SW, Room 3300
Washington, DC 20260-3501

The childhood cancer stamp would be the first semipostal devoted to a childhood disease, and would join a small and distinguished group of other cause-based stamps produced and sold at post offices, online, and by phone order.

The first semipostal stamp, a congressionally-mandated Breast Cancer Research (BCR) stamp, was issued in 1998. As of the year 2000, the Semipostal Authorization Act gives USPS the discretionary authority to issue and sell new semipostal fundraising stamps. In recent years, two semipostal stamps have been issued – an Alzheimer’s stamp in 2017 and a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder stamp in 2019. In two years of circulation, sales of the Alzheimer’s stamp raised over $1 million to fight the disease.

"By contacting USPS, Americans have a unique opportunity to directly demonstrate their support for childhood cancer fighters, survivors and their families," said Jamie Ennis Bloyd, ACCO Director of Government Relations/External Affairs.

On January 29, 2020 Syros Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SYRS), a leader in the development of medicines that control the expression of genes, reported new preclinical data showing that inhibiting cyclin-dependent kinase 7 (CDK7) results in different transcriptional effects than inhibiting cyclin-dependent kinase 12 (CDK12), pointing to distinct therapeutic opportunities to benefit patients with difficult-to-treat cancers (Press release, Syros Pharmaceuticals, JAN 29, 2020, View Source [SID1234553664]). Building on its leadership in gene control, Syros also described new methods for identifying essential genes and transcriptional dependencies in cancer that could serve as potential drug targets. These data were presented at the 2020 Keystone Symposia Cancer Epigenetics: New Mechanisms and Therapeutic Opportunities.

Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:

Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing

                  Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!

"Together, these presentations underscore our leadership in CDK inhibition and, more broadly, in the field of gene control," said Eric R. Olson, Ph.D., Syros’ Chief Scientific Officer. "Our understanding of how regulatory regions of the genome control the expression of genes is growing by leaps and bounds, bringing into reach a wide range of diseases that have long eluded effective treatment with other genomics-based approaches. Our platform allows us to elucidate those regulatory regions to pinpoint which genes to control, in which cells, for which patients, and how best to control the expression of those genes using oral molecules to maximize the chances of providing a profound benefit for patients."

CDK7 Inhibition and CDK12 Inhibition as Distinct Therapeutic Approaches
Syros scientists studied the transcriptional effects of selective CDK7 and CDK12 inhibition in an ovarian cancer cell line, marking the first reported direct comparison of these two approaches. CDK7 and CDK12 are members of the CDK family that have emerged as potentially important drug targets in cancer because of their roles in transcription, the process by which genes express proteins. The findings showed that, under the conditions tested, CDK7 and CDK12 inhibition had distinct effects despite decreasing expression of many of the same genes:

CDK7 decreased expression of more genes.
CDK12 inhibition preferentially decreased expression of genes with longer transcripts, a phenomenon that was not observed with CDK7 inhibition.
The DNA double-stranded break repair pathway is enriched for genes with longer transcripts that are preferentially downregulated by CDK12 inhibition.
CDK12 inhibition induced DNA damage, while CDK7 inhibition did not.
The results suggest that a selective CDK12 inhibitor presents distinct therapeutic opportunities from a selective CDK7 inhibitor, such as increasing the susceptibility of cancer to targeted therapies involved in DNA damage repair such as PARP1 inhibitors.

Syros has a highly selective and potent oral CDK7 inhibitor, SY-5609, currently in a Phase 1 trial in patients with advanced breast, colorectal, lung or ovarian cancer, or with solid tumors of any histology that harbor Rb pathway alterations. In addition to decreasing the expression of cancer-driving genes, CDK7 inhibition has also been shown to interfere with cancer’s ability to progress unchecked through the cell cycle. Syros also has a CDK12/13 inhibitor program in preclinical development in cancer.

Building on its Leadership in Gene Control
Syros scientists also presented on two new methods for identifying genes and transcriptional regulators upon which cancer cells are particularly dependent for their survival with the aim of identifying new drug targets.

By analyzing cancer cells with gene copy-number deletions, Syros scientists identified approximately 200 genes that represent dose-dependent transcriptional liabilities across several cancers, including general regulators of transcription that may be attractive drug targets in genetically defined tumor types. Since cancers with copy-number deletions may be more dependent on these regulators than non-cancerous cells, inhibiting them may kill cancer cells while sparing non-cancerous cells. Syros presented preclinical data on one of these transcriptional regulators, INTS11, showing that a glioblastoma cancer cell line with a 1p36-deletion, which is commonly associated with INTS11 copy-number loss, is more sensitive to decreased levels of INTS11 than a cell line without a 1p36-deletion.

In a separate presentation, Syros scientists presented data showing that its new computational model, PETCERF, outperforms earlier-generation models used to score individual enhancers to identify genes critical for a cancer cell’s survival. By integrating multiple variables and inputs related to the enhancer and gene regulatory landscapes into a machine learning model trained using CRISPR knock-out data, PETCERF was shown to identify genes in primary tumor samples that are essential to cancer cells.

Additionally, Dr. Olson will present tomorrow during an oral session on how Syros’ gene control platform has led to a pipeline of small-molecule drug candidates that control the expression of genes with the aim of providing much-needed new medicines for patients with a range of blood cancers and solid tumors.