On January 7, 2020 Revolution Medicines, Inc., a clinical-stage oncology company focused on developing targeted therapies to inhibit elusive frontier targets within notorious cancer pathways, reported that preliminary data from the company’s Phase 1 clinical trial (RMC-4630-01) of RMC-4630 will be presented at the 6th AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper)-IASLC International Joint Conference: Lung Cancer Translational Science from the Bench to the Clinic being held January 11-14, 2020 in San Diego, CA (Press release, Revolution Medicines, JAN 7, 2020, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/revolution-medicines-to-present-preliminary-data-from-phase-1-clinical-trial-of-rmc-4630-at-6th-aacr-iaslc-international-joint-conference-300982012.html [SID1234552825]).

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RMC-4630, the company’s investigational SHP2 inhibitor, is a potent and orally bioavailable small molecule that is designed to selectively inhibit the activity of SHP2, an upstream cellular protein that plays a key role in modulating cell growth by transmitting signals from receptor tyrosine kinases to RAS. The ongoing Phase 1 monotherapy study is evaluating RMC-4630 for a range of tumor types featuring specific, molecularly-defined oncogenic mutations.

Data from the study will be reported in podium and poster presentations entitled, "The SHP2 inhibitor RMC-4630 in patients with KRAS-mutant non-small cell lung cancer: Preliminary evaluation of a first-in-man phase 1 clinical trial."

Details of the presentations are as follows:

Podium Presentation:

Session: Plenary Session 1: Therapeutic Targeting and Vulnerabilities of Ras-Driven Lung Cancer
Presenting Author: Sai-Hong Ignatius Ou, M.D., Ph.D., Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, Irvine
Session Date/Time: Saturday, January 11, 2020, 4:30 – 6:15 p.m. Pacific
Poster Presentation:

Poster Number: A12
Session: Poster Session A
Presenting Author: Sai-Hong Ignatius Ou, M.D., Ph.D., Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, Irvine
Session Date/Time: Sunday, January 12, 2020, 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. Pacific
In addition to the presentations on RMC-4630, Revolution Medicines will also report preclinical data on its mutant RAS(ON) inhibitors in a poster presentation at the conference. Details of that presentation are as follows:

Poster Presentation:

Poster Number: A06
Title: Tri-complex inhibitors of the oncogenic, GTP-bound form of KRASG12C overcome RTK-mediated escape mechanisms and drive tumor regressions in preclinical models of NSCLC
Session: Poster Session A
Presenting Author: Robert Nichols, Ph.D., associate director, systems biology at Revolution Medicines
Session Date/Time: Sunday, January 12, 2020, 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. Pacific
About RMC-4630 and Sanofi Collaboration

The RMC-4630 program is the focus of an exclusive global research, development and commercialization agreement with Sanofi, under which Revolution Medicines received a $50 million upfront payment, and Sanofi agreed to reimburse Revolution Medicines for substantially all research and all development costs for the joint SHP2 program. Sanofi received an exclusive worldwide license for global commercialization of any approved products targeting SHP2, subject to a U.S. co-promote right for Revolution Medicines. The companies have agreed to enter into a 50/50 profit and loss share arrangement in the U.S., and Revolution Medicines is entitled to receive tiered royalties on annual net sales ranging from high single digit to mid-teen percentages on sales in other markets. Revolution Medicines could also receive more than $500 million in development and regulatory milestone payments.

On January 7, 2020 Centene Corporation (NYSE: CNC) reported that it will release its 2019 fourth quarter and full year financial results at approximately 6 a.m. (Eastern Time) on Tuesday, February 4th, 2020, and host a conference call afterwards at approximately 8:30 a.m. (Eastern Time) to review the results (Press release, Centene , JAN 7, 2020, View Source [SID1234552824]). Michael F. Neidorff, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Jeffrey A. Schwaneke, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, of Centene Corporation will host the call.

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Investors and other interested parties are invited to listen to the conference call by dialing 1-877-883-0383 in the U.S. and Canada; +1-412-902-6506 from abroad, including the following Elite Entry Number: 6744563, to expedite caller registration; or via a live, audio webcast on the Company’s website at www.centene.com, under the Investors section.

A webcast replay will be available for on-demand listening shortly after the completion of the call for the next 12 months or until 11:59 p.m. (Eastern Time) on Tuesday, February 9th, 2021, at the aforementioned URL. In addition, a digital audio playback will be available until 9 a.m. (Eastern Time) on Tuesday, February 11th, 2020, by dialing 1-877-344-7529 in the U.S. and Canada, or +1-412-317-0088 from abroad, and entering access code 10138090.

On January 7, 2020 Paragon Genomics, Inc., a leader in amplicon-based target enrichment solutions for next-generation sequencing (NGS) and precision medicine, reported that it will present at Biotech Showcase 2020, to be held January 13–15, 2020 at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square (Press release, Paragon Genomics, JAN 7, 2020, View Source [SID1234552823]). Paragon Genomics CEO Tao Chen will give a corporate presentation and meet with investors.

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Date: Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Presentation Time: 1:45 pm PST
Room: Yosemite C (Ballroom Level)

Tao Chen commented, "During the past year Paragon Genomics launched important new products for our growing customer base and recorded substantial growth in product sales in both the U.S. and China. Our CleanPlex technology has the potential to make NGS-based genomic analyses across a wide variety of applications faster, easier, more accurate, more economical and more feasible. Our clients have successfully applied our technologies to applications such as tumor profiling, inherited disease testing, reproductive health, drug discovery, single cell analysis and agrigenomics. We anticipate robust expansion in 2020 and look forward to sharing our exciting story with early stage life science investors in San Francisco next week."

Paragon Genomics’ CleanPlex is a proprietary, ultra-high multiplexed NGS target enrichment technology featuring an innovative PCR background cleaning chemistry that allows tens of thousands of amplicons to be multiplexed in a single reaction pool, allowing a large number of targets to be interrogated in a single assay. The CleanPlex technology is available as ready-to-use panels or as customized assays designed and optimized using the company’s advanced panel design algorithm.

Investors interested in scheduling a meeting with Paragon Genomics leadership in San Francisco should contact [email protected]. Investors interested in attending Biotech Showcase can visit informaconnect.com/biotech-showcase/ for more information.

On January 7, 2020 Gracell Biotechnologies Co., Ltd. ("Gracell"), a clinical-stage immune cell therapy company, reported the initiation of an investigational study of GC027, the first product candidate developed using TruUCAR to treat relapsed or refractory (R/R) T-cell malignancies (Press release, Gracell Biotechnologies, JAN 7, 2020, View Source [SID1234552822]).

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T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia or T-ALL is an aggressive form of ALL, which affects white blood cells and the bone marrows ability to generate healthy blood cells. About 15-20% of people with ALL have T-ALL. While T-ALL is treatable by chemotherapy and stem cell transplant, around 75% of patients will relapse within two years[1]. T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma (T-LBL) is another devastating T-cell malignancies. For patients who develop R/R T-ALL or T-LBL, there are few options for treatment.

Autologus CAR-T therapies rely on patients’ own T cells, which have been affected by prior therapies; thus, cell quality as well as efficacy remains questionable. Allogenic CAR-T therapies made of healthy donors’ T cells would be characterized as being of consistently good quality with the potential to improve efficacy. Unlike autologous CAR-T cells, allogeneic CAR-T cells can be made as off-the-shelf product which means patients do not have to wait for lengthy production time. Furthermore, the cost of production can be significantly lower. Allogenic CAR-T therapies also provide a vital treatment option for patients with viral infections and/or other conditions prohibiting access to autologous cell therapies.

TruUCAR based GC027 is designed to meet the above unmet needs. Its cells are made of T cells from healthy donors, genetically edited and inserted with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) ex vivo, which can specifically bind to and eliminate target T malignant cells. Different from industry leaders’ off-the-shelf CAR-T design, Gracell’s proprietary and patented TruUCAR technology requires no co-administration of anti-CD52, a cytotoxic agent for ablating cancerous cells while inducing long term immune depletion in the patient. Instead, GC027 utilizes CRISPR genome editing strategy that is expected to avoid graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) as well as graft rejection caused by the patients’ immune system.

The prudent preclinical studies provide substantial evidence to trigger GC027 moving into a non-IND (investigational new drug) clinical trial to evaluate the safety, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of GC027 therapy in patients suffering from relapsed and refractory T lymphocyte malignancies.

TruUCAR is another technological breakthrough developed by Gracell following the recent announcement of FasTCAR technology and products. It enables producing off-the-shelf CAR-T cells from healthy MHC (major histocompatibility complex) mismatched donors with a large number of doses readily to be dispatched to patients in need.

"Launch of the investigational GC027 study as the first-of-its-kind therapy marks another significant milestone for Gracell," said Dr. William CAO, Founder and CEO of Gracell. "Once the concept is well-proved with solid evidence for safety and efficacy, we will immediately deploy development of a series of TruUCAR products for other medical unmet needs, including B cell malignancies."

About GC027

GC027 is an investigational, off-the-shelf CAR-T cell therapy for T cell malignancies, derived from healthy donors. The use of healthy donor’s cells are preferential to a patient’s own with potential to improve efficacy, reduce production time, and lower cost of goods.

About T-ALL

T lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is an aggressive form of T cell malignancies, with a diffuse invasion of bone marrow and peripheral blood. In 2015, ALL affected around 876,000 people globally and resulted in 110,000 deaths worldwide. T-ALL compromises about 15%-20% children and adults[1]. Current standard therapies for T-ALL are chemotherapies and stem cell transplantation. A large portion of these patients will experience relapse within two years following treatment by conventional therapies.

About T-LBL

T lymphoblastic lymphoma (T-LBL) is an aggressive form of T cell malignancies, with rare lymphoproliferative neoplasm of mature T cells caused by infection with the retrovirus human T lymphotropic virus. T-LBL compromises about 2% of adult non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) and 30% of pediatric NHL patients[2]. Five-year overall survival is only 14% in adults. Although first-line treatment using cytotoxic combination chemotherapy can achieve 70% ORR, nearly 90% of patients relapse, often within months of completing chemotherapy.

On January 7, 2020 Nektar Therapeutics’ (Nasdaq: NKTR) President and Chief Executive Officer, Howard Robin, is reported to present at the upcoming 38th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco on Monday, January 13, 2020 at 2:30 p.m. Pacific Time (Press release, Nektar Therapeutics, JAN 7, 2020, View Source [SID1234552821]).

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The presentation will be accessible via a Webcast through a link posted on the Investors, Events Calendar section of the Nektar website: View Source In addition, the company will webcast the Q&A breakout session immediately following its presentation at 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time. This Webcast will be available for replay until February 21, 2020.