On March 9, 2021 Apollomics, Inc., an innovative biopharmaceutical company committed to the discovery and development of mono- and combination- oncology therapies, reported the appointment of K. Peony Yu, M.D. as Chief Medical Officer (Press release, Apollomics, MAR 9, 2021, View Source [SID1234576259]). Dr. Yu will assume the role on March 16, 2021. Apollomics also announced that Sophie (Zhengjie) Sun has been named as Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and will be based in the Company’s China office. Both executives report to Guo-Liang Yu, PhD, Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company.

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!

"Dr. Yu joins us with an incredible leadership and global drug development background that is a perfect fit for Apollomics, and we are thrilled to welcome her to our team," said Guo-Liang Yu, PhD, Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "Peony’s extensive cross border experience includes managing teams in both the U.S. and China and overseeing multiple functions including clinical development, regulatory strategy and medical affairs. Peony will be instrumental in our efforts to advance our current assets and expand our development pipeline."

"Apollomics patient centric focus aligns with my priorities and I am excited to join the team. The Company’s precision medicine approach targeting specific mutations, amplifications and resistance mechanisms is technology that I believe can make a difference and bring transformative therapies to cancer patients. I look forward to contributing to this effort and advancing the clinical development programs globally," added K. Peony Yu, M.D.

Dr. Guo-Liang Yu, concluded, "Since inception, Apollomics has built numerous partnerships and we continuously explore options to broaden our portfolio. We are excited to welcome Sophie Sun who will be responsible for corporate strategy, business development, and strategic collaboration. Her diversified career covers three continents and her leadership in strategy, partnering, and commercialization will be a valuable resource as we continue our fight against cancer."

Peony Yu, M.D.

Dr. Yu spent 12 years at Fibrogen where she served in multiple roles of increasing responsibility culminating in her appointment as Chief Medical Officer in 2016. She brings leadership and expertise in design and execution of clinical development programs in all phases of development, including clinical and regulatory strategy, and interactions with global regulatory authorities.. Prior to joining Fibrogen, Dr. Yu was Vice President and Head of Clinical Research at Anesiva, Inc. (formerly known as Corgentech, Inc., (NASDAQ: ANSV)), where she was responsible for management of clinical research, statistics/data management, clinical operations, and medical affairs/medical information for all clinical programs. Dr. Yu received a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of California, Davis. She completed her residency training at Stanford Medical School.

Sophie (Zhengjie) Sun, MBA

Sophie Sun joins Apollomics from Merck KGaA, where she was most recently Vice President & Managing Director, Innovation Hubs China. In this role, Ms. Sun oversaw Merck KGaA’s development partnerships in China for China and global markets. She was with Merck KGaA for twelve years holding multiple roles of increasing responsibility including participation in nine new product launches. Prior to Merck KGaA, Ms. Sun spent over eight years at marketing agencies Interpublic Group (IPG) and WPP, where she consulted for many Fortune 500 companies covering a wide range of industries. Ms. Sun received a Master’s degree from Remin University of China, and a Master of Business Administration from MIT Sloan School of Management.

On March 9, 2021 Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of innovative cancer therapies and diagnostics based on its proprietary Affimer and pre|CISION platforms, reported that it has entered into a license agreement with Biokit, a Werfen Company, to incorporate Affimer reagents into a Biokit in-vitro diagnostic (IVD) product (Press release, Avacta, MAR 9, 2021, View Source [SID1234576250]).

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!

Biokit is recognised and renowned as a Centre of Excellence with consolidated experience worldwide in research, development and manufacturing of assays and biomaterial solutions for IVD use.

The license agreement follows an extensive evaluation by Biokit of certain Affimer reagents to detect a key analyte. Under the terms of the agreement Biokit has the right to develop, manufacture and commercialise through original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners a diagnostic immunoassay for this analyte.

Avacta will receive royalties on future sales of any products brought to market following completion of product development and regulatory approvals. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Dr Alastair Smith, Chief Executive of Avacta Group commented:

"I am delighted to have established this partnership with Biokit, a world-renowned IVD company, which further validates the Affimer reagent platform for diagnostics. Avacta’s diagnostics business model combines development of a wholly owned pipeline of products, including the SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen test, with licensing of Affimer reagents to diagnostic development partners such as Biokit.

Biokit will develop an automated clinical assay using the Affimer reagents that Avacta has developed for them and I look forward to the successful conclusion of that development process and product launch. There is also potential for the partnership between our two companies to continue and expand to include other diagnostic targets and future Affimer-based IVDs."

Dr Marta Palicio, Innovation Director of Biokit commented:

"Biokit is very pleased to have reached this agreement with Avacta. The agreement will increase the competitiveness of our customized assay offering for our partners. Avacta’s technology also enables us to innovate our assays with new reagents like Affimer reagents, an alternative to antibodies. We can now move onto the next stage of development, incorporation of this technology into new products. We hope this is the first of many assays containing Affimer reagents which will be developed by Avacta".

On 8 March 2021 ALSA Ventures reported the launch of Promatix Inc., a Delaware incorporated company, to develop novel therapeutics with the potential to transform the treatment of cancer (Press release, Promatix Biosciences, MAR 8, 2021, View Source [SID1234629078]). Promatix will use its multi-omic proprietary database, TxPro, to mine for novel, and validate existing, drug targets.

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!

"As we mark off the 20th anniversary of drafting the human genome, it’s clear we’re still in the early innings of a revolution in molecular biology. Taking a multi-omic approach to novel drug discovery, aided by advances in AI technology, Promatix will take a highly focused, data driven approach, to hunt for novel targets in oncology indications of unmet need"
Alek Safarian, Executive Chairman of Promatix
‍
Building on two decades of development, chiefly in the proteomics space, Promatix will combine its proprietary platform, TxPro, with third party public and private databases to create a powerful multi-omic engine to help Identify novel targets for rapid early development.

Promatix will continue to be incubated in the near term within the ALSA Group, which is providing seed funding to establish its first suite of targeted research projects. Dr Robert Balfour, Investment Director at ALSA, and acting CEO at Promatix emphasised the importance of building on Promatix’s academic links as a guiding principle of its mission.

"Both for known targets, as well as discovering new ones, TxPro has the potential to make a significant contribution to the wider body of knowledge. We are delighted to be working with world class advisors in this endeavour, and are looking forward to establishing a robust pipeline of drug candidates"
Dr Robert Balfour, CEO
‍
Scientific Advisory Board
Promatix’s advisors bring a wealth of knowledge across proteomics, oncology and computational biology.

Dr Jyoti Choudhary is head of the Proteomics Core Facility at the Institute of Cancer Research, UK. Her research focuses on the development and implementation of novel mass spectrometry and data analysis approaches for proteome discovery.

Professor Jasmin Fisher heads up The Fisher Lab at University College London. The Fisher Lab develops computational tools to study the evolution of cancer and the underlying mechanisms of cancer to identify personalised treatment for patients. Prior to joining UCL Jasmin was a Principal Researcher at Microsoft research in Cambridge, UK and an Associate Professor in Systems Biology at Cambridge University.

Dr Namshik Han is the Head of Computational Research Group at the University of Cambridge Milner Therapeutics Institute. The group develops and applies cutting edge computational methods such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify new therapies from the analysis of large multi-omic datasets. Prior to Cambridge, he was a post-doc in computational cancer genomics at the University of Manchester and worked in software development for Samsung Electronics.

On March 8, 2021 Female-founded tech companies in Ireland reported that it raised more than €100 million in funding last year for the first time (Press release, Shorla Pharma, MAR 8, 2021, View Source [SID1234578121]).

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!

New figures published to coincide with International Women’s Day show 50 start-up and scaling companies with a female founder or co-founder secured €105 million through a mixture of venture capital, grants, equity finance and angel investments.

The achievement was particularly significant given that, globally, female founder funding fell 27 per cent last year versus 2019.

The 2020 figure marks a big increase in funding on the prior year when just €63 million was raised by female-founded tech companies. Female founders came close to hitting the €100 million milestone in 2018 when a combined €97.7 million was raised. However, €51 million of that year’s total came from just two deals.

John O’Dea, chief executive of TechIreland, which compiled the figures, described surpassing the €100 million mark as an important milestone.

International Women’s Day: No more excuses on gender and power
Reproductive leave should be introduced for miscarriage and IVF
Una Mullally: Fine Gael makes a clumsy grab for female voters
"Ireland is on par with the UK and is performing better than most EU countries in terms of funding for female tech businesses," he said.

Mr O’Dea noted, however, that female-founded tech companies are still underrepresented generally, accounting for just 10 per cent of the total funding secured last year. In addition, just 18 per cent of the tech companies that raised funding had a female founder.

Overall, while the average sum raised by Irish tech companies was €4.5 million last year, for female-founded ones, it was less than half that – at €2.1 million.

The largest round raised by a female founder in 2020 was Shirley O’Dea’s Avectas, which secured €18.5 million in funding. The cell engineering technology business, which was spun out of Maynooth University, was also behind the biggest round in 2019, when it secured €12 million in investment.

Other female-founded companies to secure investment last year included Silvercloud Health, MicroGen Biotech, Shorla Pharma, Soapbox Labs, Payslip, TriviumVet, Proverum Medical, VR Education and Vela Games.

Learn more
The increased in funding last year was driven largely by later-stage companies, the study shows.

Healthtech was by far and away the most popular sector for funding, with 17 female-founded companies in the space raising a combined €63.5 million. Enterprise Solutions was second with 16 companies securing €21.3 million, while agritech and edtech were also popular.

Martina Fitzgerald, chief executive of Scale Ireland, said "the record level of funding will encourage and inspire more women to pursue their ambitions and build their own tech companies. However, the overall picture is stark in terms of the total number of female founders and the level of funding they are receiving".

On March 8, 2021 Biosceptre reported the securing of £7m. (US$9.6m.) in funds to boost development of its nfP2X7-targeted CAR T program – a new generation of therapy with the potential to treat a broad range of haematologic and solid tumour malignancies (Press release, Biosceptre, MAR 8, 2021, View Source;utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=biosceptre-secures-7m-to-boost-novel-car-t-therapy [SID1234577403]).

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 funding, drawn from Norcliffe Capital in Europe and Jungle Capital in Australia, will help Biosceptre push it’s unique lead program towards clinical trials.

"We are really pleased by this fund raise as it reaffirms confidence in our ground-breaking nfP2X7-targeted therapies, and the drastic difference they could make to the lives of thousands of cancer patients, world-wide," explained said Mr Gavin Currie, CEO of Biosceptre.

"The funding will help propel our CAR T program through the optimisation and preclinical stage, towards manufacturing and potential first in-human studies."

"In parallel with our CAR T program we will further the development of our monoclonal antibody therapeutic program too."

nfP2X7 is a tumour-specific target, discovered by Biosceptre, that’s found on a wide range of cancers, both haematological and solid. Studies have shown that it retains critical signalling capabilities that support cancer cell survival and possesses novel epitopes that are available for antibody binding. Importantly, these aren’t detected at the surface of functional P2X7. Targeting cancer cells via these nfP2X7 epitopes offers great specificity – and forms the basis of Biosceptre’s technology.

Driven by Nobel prize-winning science leadership, Biosceptre’s innovative research and therapeutics are supported by ongoing collaborations with global experts and major research institutes, such as The University of Sydney, Universiy of Technology, Sydney and The Children’s Medical Research Institute