On June 15, 2021 Alentis Therapeutics, the Swiss biotech developing breakthrough treatments for fibrotic diseases, reported that it has raised USD67 (CHF60) million in a Series B financing round (Press release, Alentis Therapeutics, JUN 15, 2021, View Source [SID1234584012]). The funding will be used primarily for proof-of-concept clinical trials of Alentis’ first in class, Claudin-1 targeting, anti-fibrotic molecules in advanced liver and kidney fibrosis, and support ongoing drug discovery programs targeting other fibrotic diseases and hepatobiliary cancers.

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Morningside Venture Investments led the financing, joined by Jeito Capital and Series A investors BioMed Partners, BB Pureos Bioventures, Bpifrance through its InnoBio 2 fund, High-Tech Gründerfonds and Schroders Capital.

"Our investors recognize the high unmet medical need," said Dr. Roberto Iacone, CEO of Alentis, "They feel a great sense of urgency to develop innovative treatments for patients with life-threatening fibrotic diseases as well as related deadly cancers such as hepatocellular carcinoma and cholangiocarcinoma." Dr. Iacone added, "This will fuel our strategy of expanding the indications for Claudin-1 targeting agents and further build our pipeline of proprietary product candidates.

Prof. Thomas Baumert, founder of Alentis, said that in the US and Europe alone, about 45% of deaths can be attributed to fibrotic disorders. He said that fibrosis affects nearly all tissues and organ systems such as the liver, kidneys and lungs.

"Fibrosis is an important risk factor for cancer, and Claudin-1 has a well-established role in cancer biology including tumor invasion and metastasis," Prof. Baumert said. "Given the absent and unsatisfactory treatment options, it’s critical that we deliver new therapeutics for patients suffering from fibrosis and cancer."

In addition, Alentis welcomed Jason Dinges of Morningside and Rafaèle Tordjman, founder and CEO of Jeito Capital, to its Board of Directors, effective immediately.

"We are excited about Alentis’ first-in-class approach to potentially enable effective treatments for fibrotic diseases with significant unmet medical need," said Dr. Dinges. "We look forward to supporting this exceptional team as they pioneer modulation of Claudin-1, an important and highly promising target in fibrosis and oncology."

"Our investment in Alentis is very much in line with Jeito’s goal to accelerate the growth of companies developing treatments for severely ill patients with no other options. We provide input into the science right through to the product’s market access," said Dr. Tordjman. "Alentis has an outstanding and experienced team from pharma and biotech and is focused on a unique target, based on the founder’s work and his team of more than 10 years."

Alentis’ unique therapeutic approach focuses on the inhibition of Claudin-1 outside the tight junction and its downstream signalling acting on cell fate and plasticity. Alentis’ lead molecules ALE.F02 and ALE.C04 are highly selective anti-Claudin-1 mAb that recognize pathological overexpressed and conformation-dependent Claudin-1 epitopes in fibrotic disease and cancer. In preclinical studies, the lead molecule ALE.F02 modulates the function of non-junctional Claudin-1, preventing, and possibly reversing, the growth of fibrotic tissue within the liver and kidney by changing the plasticity of key cell types mediating fibrosis. Safety studies in non-human primates have supported translatability of the approach into patients. Alentis expects to initiate its first clinical trial in Q4 2021.

On June 15, 2021 Champions Oncology (NASDAQ: CSBR), a technology-enabled research organization reported that they have entered into a strategic partnership with BGI Americas (Press release, Champions Oncology, JUN 15, 2021, View Source [SID1234584011]).

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Through this partnership, BGI will now have access to Champions’ Lumin Bioinformatics platform, a revolutionary data interpretation tool, to display and deliver proteomics data to their clients. By leveraging Lumin, BGI’s customers will be able to gain novel insights from their proteomics data using unique multi-omic datasets assembled from over 25,000 cancer patients. Lumin Bioinformatics allows oncology scientists and bioinformaticians to analyze and visualize cancer model public and proprietary datasets to illuminate the cellular dynamics of cancer, through specialized modules such as gene signatures, network viewers, synergy plots and even gene dependency mapper tools using AI machine learning technology.

Through this partnership Champions Oncology will be able to offer to its customers multi-omics biomarker discovery and validation solutions by leveraging BGI’s advanced mass spectrometry services in proteomics and metabolomics. Specifically, BGI’s Mass Spectrometry Center in San Jose, California will be responsible for sample preparation as well as generation and analysis of proteomics and metabolomics data using the lab’s cutting-edge mass spectrometers, including Thermo Fisher Q Exactive HF-X, Orbitrap Fusion Lumos, and Orbitrap Eclipse. Furthermore, this partnership will enable Champions to further enhance the characterization of its highly annotated, clinically relevant, and continuously expanding PDX bank with proteomic and metabolomic profiling datasets. By partnering as preferred providers, BGI and Champions will offer their customers a fully streamlined workflow from data generation to analysis and interpretation, to address the needs of a variety of drug discovery and development projects.

"Partnerships with global leaders in cutting edge technologies like genomics and proteomics are critical to Champions providing the most diverse and robust model datasets through our Lumin Bioinformatics platform," said Ronnie Morris, MD, CEO of Champions Oncology. "This partnership helps to solidify Champions Oncology as a global leader in data-driven solutions and an ideal partner for biomarker discovery and validation efforts."

On June 15, 2021 Alentis Therapeutics, the Swiss biotech developing breakthrough treatments for fibrotic diseases, reported that it has raised USD67 (CHF60) million in a Series B financing round (Press release, Alentis Therapeutics, JUN 15, 2021, View Source [SID1234584010]). The funding will be used primarily for proof-of-concept clinical trials of Alentis’ first in class, Claudin-1 targeting, anti-fibrotic molecules in advanced liver and kidney fibrosis, and support ongoing drug discovery programs targeting other fibrotic diseases and hepatobiliary cancers.

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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

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Morningside Venture Investments led the financing, joined by Jeito Capital and Series A investors BioMed Partners, BB Pureos Bioventures, Bpifrance through its InnoBio 2 fund, High-Tech Gründerfonds and Schroders Capital.

"Our investors recognize the high unmet medical need," said Dr. Roberto Iacone, CEO of Alentis, "They feel a great sense of urgency to develop innovative treatments for patients with life-threatening fibrotic diseases as well as related deadly cancers such as hepatocellular carcinoma and cholangiocarcinoma." Dr. Iacone added, "This will fuel our strategy of expanding the indications for Claudin-1 targeting agents and further build our pipeline of proprietary product candidates.

Prof. Thomas Baumert, founder of Alentis, said that in the US and Europe alone, about 45% of deaths can be attributed to fibrotic disorders. He said that fibrosis affects nearly all tissues and organ systems such as the liver, kidneys and lungs.

"Fibrosis is an important risk factor for cancer, and Claudin-1 has a well-established role in cancer biology including tumor invasion and metastasis," Prof. Baumert said. "Given the absent and unsatisfactory treatment options, it’s critical that we deliver new therapeutics for patients suffering from fibrosis and cancer."

In addition, Alentis welcomed Jason Dinges of Morningside and Rafaèle Tordjman, founder and CEO of Jeito Capital, to its Board of Directors, effective immediately.

"We are excited about Alentis’ first-in-class approach to potentially enable effective treatments for fibrotic diseases with significant unmet medical need," said Dr. Dinges. "We look forward to supporting this exceptional team as they pioneer modulation of Claudin-1, an important and highly promising target in fibrosis and oncology."

"Our investment in Alentis is very much in line with Jeito’s goal to accelerate the growth of companies developing treatments for severely ill patients with no other options. We provide input into the science right through to the product’s market access," said Dr. Tordjman. "Alentis has an outstanding and experienced team from pharma and biotech and is focused on a unique target, based on the founder’s work and his team of more than 10 years."

Alentis’ unique therapeutic approach focuses on the inhibition of Claudin-1 outside the tight junction and its downstream signalling acting on cell fate and plasticity. Alentis’ lead molecules ALE.F02 and ALE.C04 are highly selective anti-Claudin-1 mAb that recognize pathological overexpressed and conformation-dependent Claudin-1 epitopes in fibrotic disease and cancer. In preclinical studies, the lead molecule ALE.F02 modulates the function of non-junctional Claudin-1, preventing, and possibly reversing, the growth of fibrotic tissue within the liver and kidney by changing the plasticity of key cell types mediating fibrosis. Safety studies in non-human primates have supported translatability of the approach into patients. Alentis expects to initiate its first clinical trial in Q4 2021.

On June 15, 2021 Quirem Medical reported that A first clinical QuiremSpheres patient procedure took place with radioactive holmium-166 microspheres that were activated at the BR2 reactor in Mol, Belgium (Press release, Quirem Medical, JUN 15, 2021, View Source [SID1234584001]). QuiremSpheres is an innovative product for treating liver cancer patients. In 2020, primary liver cancer was the 7th most common cancer worldwide, responsible for 905,677 new cases. This equates to 4.7% of all cancers diagnosed in 2020. Primary liver cancer became fatal that year for 830,180 patients worldwide, making liver cancer the third most deadly cancer of 2020, accounting for 8.3% of all cancer-related deaths.

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"We are very pleased that after a period of extensive testing and validation, we can now use the BR2 reactor for clinical productions." says Jan Sigger, CEO of Quirem Medical. "SCK CEN has proven to be a strong partner and we value their commitment during the development process leading up to this first clinical case. With the high reliability of the BR2 reactor, we are confident we can meet the strongly increasing demand for our products throughout Europe and beyond."

"The Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK CEN) is a global leader in the field of nuclear research, services and education. SCK CEN is operating the BR2 reactor and has a long-standing tradition of partnering with healthcare companies to secure the global supply of medical radioisotopes. We are excited that we are now also able to support the production of holmium-166 microspheres for the treatment of liver cancer." says Bernard Ponsard, Stakeholder Manager of the BR2 reactor for radioisotope production and silicon doping.

QuiremScout is a unique product that allows for screening of patients that are candidates for Selective Internal Radiation Therapy (SIRT). QuiremScout is unique, as it is the only CE-marked product on the market for that purpose. It is more predictive than the current standard, Tech-99m-MAA.

QuiremSpheres, the next generation of radio-embolization microspheres, is the only commercially available SIRT product that contains holmium-166 microspheres. Unlike the widely adopted yttrium-90 microspheres, holmium-166 microspheres can be visualized in low concentrations by means of Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). This allows clinicians to quantitatively assess the distribution of microspheres in the liver, enabling accurate evaluation of treatment directly after the radio-embolization procedure.

On June 15, 2021 eFFECTOR Therapeutics, Inc. ("eFFECTOR"), a biopharmaceutical company focused on pioneering the development of selective translation regulation inhibitors ("STRIs") for the treatment of cancer, reported that Steve Worland, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of eFFECTOR, and Chris Ehrlich, chief executive officer and director of Locust Walk Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: LWAC), a special purpose acquisition company, will present a company overview at the JMP Securities 2021 Life Sciences Conference on Thursday, June 17 at 2:00 p.m. ET (Press release, eFFECTOR Therapeutics, JUN 15, 2021, View Source [SID1234583983]).

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A live webcast will be accessible from the "Events and Presentation" page of the "News" section of the eFFECTOR’s website (www.effector.com).

As previously announced on May 27, 2021, eFFECTOR entered into a definitive Agreement and Plan of Merger (the "Merger Agreement") with LWAC and Locust Walk Merger Sub, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of LWAC ("Merger Sub"). Upon the closing of the transaction, anticipated to occur in the third quarter of 2021, subject to approval of LWAC stockholders and the satisfaction or waiver of certain other customary closing conditions, the combined company will be named eFFECTOR Therapeutics, Inc. and is expected to be listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the ticker symbol "EFTR".