On August 4, 2021 MAIA Biotechnology, Inc., a targeted therapy, immuno-oncology company focused on developing first-in-class oncology drugs, reported that it has appointed Mihail Obrocea, M.D., as Chief Medical Officer and Head of Development, and Charlotte Tsou as an independent member of its board of directors (Press release, MAIA Biotechnology, AUG 4, 2021, View Source [SID1234585750]).

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"We’re thrilled to welcome Mihail and Charlotte to the MAIA team, who bring significant clinical development, financial and leadership expertise that will be important as we advance our cancer pipeline to patients," stated Vlad Vitoc, MD, MAIA’s Chief Executive Officer and President. "Mihail is a distinguished physician scientist and accomplished drug developer who has brought numerous oncology drugs to patients in need. Charlotte is an outstanding business leader who will provide a global perspective to our growth strategies. Both Mihail and Charlotte bring diverse expertise to MAIA and we are eager to benefit from their insights and guidance as we continue to build a world-class biotechnology company."

New Appointment Biographies:

Mihail Obrocea, M.D. is a hematologist/oncologist with over 20 years of experience in drug development in both academia and pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry with expertise in the development of cell therapy, cancer vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and small molecules. Dr. Obrocea has played an instrumental role in the development and commercialization of numerous drugs, including IMBRUVICA, BESPONSA, and BREYANZI. Prior to joining MAIA, he served as Project and Clinical Lead at Atara Biotherapeutics where he supported the clinical development of the Atara’s allogeneic CAR-T platform. He has held multiple senior level positions over the last two decades including leading the Medical Affairs Oncology group at MedImmune, serving as VP, Clinical Development Oncology at MannKind Corp., Global Project Lead for AbbVie Biotherapeutics, Head, Medical Sciences at Pharmacyclics, VP of Clinical and Medical Affairs at SFJ Pharmaceutical Group, US Clinical Lead at Nanobiotix Corp, and clinical Program Lead at Juno Therapeutics Inc. Dr. Obrocea’s research has been published in major oncology peer-reviewed journals, he has co-authored books related to cancer vaccines and immunology, and holds several patents in the biotechnology field.

Dr. Obrocea received his M.D. from the University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest, Romania and completed an internship and residency program in Internal Medicine at Yale-New Haven affiliated hospitals in Connecticut followed by a fellowship program in hematology/oncology and later appointed as Instructor of Medicine, division of Hematology & Oncology at Mary Hitchcock Medical Center and Geisel Medical School at Dartmouth in New Hampshire.

Charlotte Tsou is a global business leader with several decades of multi-national experience holding leadership positions in the U.S., Asia, and Latin America in the Banking & Financial Service sector. Currently, Ms. Tsou is Head of Marketing Analytics and Insights, overseeing business solutions, consumer research, and experiments driven by AI at Prudential Financial. Prior to joining Prudential Financial, Charlotte spent 17 years with HSBC, held multiple leadership roles in Strategic Planning, Partnerships, Digital & CRM Transformation, and built one of the largest AI-driven Data & Analytics centers in banking.

Ms. Tsou earned a B.A (Hons). in Media Communication from NYU & Shin Hsin University and an M.A. in Integrated Marketing Communication (Specialized in Digital & Database Marketing) from Northwestern University. She is currently a Doctoral Candidate with the SBS Swiss Business School.

On August 4, 2021 Arcus Biosciences, Inc. (NYSE:RCUS), an oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company working to create best-in-class cancer therapies, reported that management will present at the 2021 Wedbush PacGrow Virtual Healthcare Conference on Wednesday, August 11, 2021 at 1:45 p.m. Eastern Time (Press release, Arcus Biosciences, AUG 4, 2021, View Source [SID1234585749]).

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A live audio webcast of the presentation will be available by visiting the "Investors" section of the Arcus website at www.arcusbio.com. A replay of the webcast will be available for at least two weeks following the live event.

On August 4, 2021 Calidi Biotherapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company at the forefront of stem cell-based delivery of oncolytic viruses, reported that it has executed a license agreement with Northwestern University for the exclusive commercialization rights to the IND and data generated from Northwestern’s Phase 1 clinical trial treating brain tumor patients with an engineered oncolytic adenovirus delivered by neural stem cells ("NSC-CRAd-S-pk7") (Press release, Calidi Biotherapeutics, AUG 4, 2021, View Source [SID1234585746]). The license is for Calidi’s commercial development of stem-cell based products loaded with adenovirus. A group of prominent neurosurgeons and neuro-oncologists led by Dr. Maciej S. Lesniak, Chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery, at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and Dr. Roger Stupp, Chief of Neuro-Oncology in the department of Neurology at Northwestern University, has successfully completed a Phase 1, first-in-human clinical trial with NSC-CRAd-S-pk7, hereafter referred to as NeuroNova-1 (NNV-1), in patients with newly diagnosed malignant glioma. This trial resulted from a 13 year collaboration with Dr. Karen Aboody at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, who developed the tumor-tropic neural stem cell line.

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"We share the same excitement and passion of Dr. Lesniak about the potential of NeuroNova-1," said Allan J. Camaisa, CEO and Chairman of Calidi Biotherapeutics. "This exclusive worldwide license and the upcoming Phase 2 clinical trial with NeuroNova-1 will further expand and diversify our product pipeline and portfolio, making Calidi’s solutions more versatile across a variety of cancer indications. We look forward to sharing our cell delivery expertise in future trials with a world-class institution like Northwestern University."

In preclinical models, the neural stem cells were capable of effectively targeting the delivery of the viral payload selectively to glioma cells, warranting the translation of this therapeutic approach to the clinical setting.

"Northwestern University’s neurosurgery and neuro-oncology teams are looking forward to continued collaboration with Calidi Biotherapeutics for the Phase 2 trial of NeuroNova-1," said Maciej S. Lesniak, MD, MHCM, FAANS, Professor of Neurological Surgery and Chair, Department of Neurological Surgery, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "We chose to partner with Calidi over other companies, on account of their extensive expertise and proprietary methods in stem cell-based platforms for delivery and potentiation of oncolytic viruses. We will draw from their significant experience and expertise in this field to further enhance the next generation of NeuroNova-1."

"Our team is very pleased to help further development of NeuroNova-1," said Boris Minev, MD, President, Medical and Scientific Affairs at Calidi Biotherapeutics. "This novel agent has a significant potential for glioma treatment, especially in patients having very difficult to treat gliomas with unmethylated MGMT promoters. These promising findings have been published in the June 29, 2021 issue of the prestigious journal: Lancet Oncology." An article referencing this journal publication was recently published in Apple News: Medical Xpress, entitled: Novel therapy may improve survival for patients with malignant gliomas (Article).

Under the License Agreement, Northwestern granted to Calidi a worldwide, twelve-year exclusivity for use of the clinical data in the commercial development of NSC-CRAd-S-pk7 for therapeutic and preventive uses in oncology and a right of reference to NU IND 17365 which relates to the treatment of newly diagnosed glioma.

On August 4, 2021 Strand Therapeutics, a privately held developer of next-generation, programmable mRNA therapeutics for cancer immunotherapy and other diseases, reported that the company was awarded two Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop mRNA-based therapeutics for melanoma and triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) (Press release, Strand Therapeutics, AUG 4, 2021, View Source [SID1234585745]). The total funding amount awarded to Strand is approximately $800,000.

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While there have been advances in the development of treatment options for melanoma, the number of diagnoses continues to increase. Furthermore, standard of care using anti-PD-1 immunotherapy has been limited with not all patients responding to the therapy. To address this need, the first award granted to Strand will support the development of programmable mRNA circuits that express cytokines which regulate the activation of immune cells, to stimulate an adaptive immune response as a neoadjuvant therapy for melanoma.

TNBC is an aggressive form of breast cancer, accounting for 10-15% of all cases, and is another cancer indication in need of more targeted and effective medicines. Patients have a poor prognosis with limited treatment options. While checkpoint inhibitor therapies including anti-PD-1 antibodies have improved outcomes in patients, only a small percentage respond to this treatment strategy. The second award will allow Strand to engineer synthetic self-replicating mRNA therapies expressing locally-acting cytokines with the goal of improving anti-PD-1 therapy responses.

"It is well known that cytokines can be utilized to achieve an anti-tumor effect in cancer patients. However, treatment strategies that involve cytokines can be highly toxic, and therefore, its efficacy can be limited. To that end, we can use our programmable, self-replicating mRNA therapeutic platform to localize cytokine expression that will potentially enable more precise and longer-lasting anti-cancer immune responses," said Jake Becraft, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Strand. "This generous support from NIH’s NCI will enable us to create synthetic mRNA-based therapeutics that can be safer and more effective than currently available treatment options for both melanoma and breast cancer patients."

On August 4, 2021 Gamida Cell Ltd. (Nasdaq: GMDA), an advanced cell therapy company committed to cures for blood cancers and serious blood diseases, reported that the company will host a conference call and live audio webcast on Wednesday, August 11, 2021, at 8:00 a.m. ET to review its second quarter 2021 financial results and provide an update on the company (Press release, Gamida Cell, AUG 4, 2021, View Source [SID1234585744]).

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Management will discuss the company’s progress during the quarter, including advances in the development of omidubicel, which has the potential to be the first approved cell therapy for blood cancer patients in need of an allogeneic bone marrow transplant, following the planned BLA submission in the fourth quarter of 2021. Gamida Cell will also provide an update on its pipeline of NAM-enabled natural killer (NK) cell therapies, including GDA-201 and genetically-modified NK cell constructs. The Company is planning an IND submission to support the initiation of a Phase 1/2 clinical study of cryopreserved, off-the-shelf GDA-201 in patients with follicular and diffuse large b-cell lymphomas.

The webcast will be available on the "Investors & Media" section of the Gamida Cell website at www.gamida-cell.com. To participate in the live call, please dial 866-930-5560 (domestic) or 409-216-0605 (international) and refer to conference ID number 9949715. A replay of the webcast will be available approximately two hours after the event, for approximately 30 days.