On February 7, 2022 Cerus Corporation (Nasdaq: CERS) reported that the Company will participate in the BTIG Virtual MedTech, Digital Health, Life Science & Diagnostic Tools Conference and the 11th Annual SVB Leerink Global Healthcare Conference (Press release, Cerus, FEB 7, 2022, View Source [SID1234607811]).

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On Wednesday, February 16th at 9:00 a.m. EST, Vivek Jayaraman, Cerus’ chief operating officer, is scheduled to participate at the BTIG MedTech, Digital Health, Life Science & Diagnostic Tools Virtual Conference. BTIG-hosted events are intended for prospective and existing BTIG clients only. To listen to the live event, please contact your BTIG representative.

On Friday, February 18th at 12:00 p.m. EST, Kevin Green, Cerus’ chief financial officer, is scheduled to participate at the 11th Annual SVB Leerink Global Healthcare Conference. To listen to the webcast, please visit the investor relations section of Cerus’ website at: ir.cerus.com.

On February 7, 2022 Immagene, a Dutch biotech company developing transformational next-generation precision immuno-oncology treatments, and Selvita (WSE: SLV), one of the largest preclinical contract research organizations in Europe, reported their cooperation on an integrated drug discovery project (Press release, Selvita, FEB 7, 2022, View Source;utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=immagene-and-selvita-announce-integrated-drug-discovery-cooperation [SID1234607810]).

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Immagene and Selvita have been closely cooperating over the past year on a novel integrated drug discovery project to enhance the clinical benefit of immuno-oncology therapies. In this ongoing effort, Immagene is guiding and tapping into Selvita’s extensive drug discovery capabilities. Selvita is responsible for a broad range of drug discovery activities including medicinal chemistry supported by computational chemistry, in vitro pharmacology, DMPK and recombinant protein production. Immagene and Selvita are now extending their cooperation.

Edyta Jaworska, VP Sales, Drug Discovery Europe and Asia at Selvita Group, comments:
"We are truly delighted with the extension of our close collaboration with Immagene. For Selvita’s team, it is a perfect opportunity to leverage the full scope of our integrated drug discovery capabilities. This project is exceptionally promising in terms of its therapeutic potential and unique chemistry."

Maarten Ligtenberg, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of Immagene, said:
"We are confident that our collaboration with Selvita will help us achieve our aim of generating potent first in class small-molecule immune-oncology assets. The rapid turnaround and effective communication allow for the swift development of our programs. We look forward to a longstanding, joint effort to develop innovative therapeutics."

To date, Selvita has delivered numerous promising compounds for biology and DMPK screening, and the project has entered the lead optimization phase. The ultimate aim of the cooperation is to provide Immagene with a clinical candidate for unmet immuno-oncology needs. The continued collaboration will help accelerate Immagene’s pipeline expansion efforts by leveraging Selvita’s fully integrated R&D platform and unique experience in oncology drug discovery and development.

On February 7, 2022 Varsity Pharmaceuticals (Varsity), a biopharmaceutical company developing small molecule therapies that target treatment resistant cancers, reported that it has secured exclusive rights from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a world-leading cancer treatment and research institute, to develop and commercialize Novobiocin, a potential first-in-class DNA polymerase theta inhibitor for the treatment of Homologous Recombination (HR) deficient cancers (Press release, Varsity Pharmaceuticals, FEB 7, 2022, View Source [SID1234607809]).

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Homologous Recombination deficiency is where the body is unable to repair double strand breaks in DNA due to mutations in genes such as BRCA1 and BRCA2. Pol-Theta is an enzyme that can repair double strand breaks that recently emerged as a new cancer specific DNA Damage Response target that compensates for the loss of HR function in HR deficient cancers such as ovarian, breast, pancreatic and prostate cancer. Whilst PARP enzyme inhibitors have seen some success in the treatment of HR deficient cancers, PARP inhibitor drug resistance is emerging as a significant barrier to their effectiveness.

Research led by Prof. Alan D. D’Andrea and published in Nature Cancer (Zhou et al. 2021) demonstrated that Novobiocin, a drug previously used as an antibiotic, is a potent Pol-Theta enzyme inhibitor that can be used alone or in combination with PARP inhibitors to treat HR-deficient tumors, even after they have become resistant to PARP inhibitor therapy.

More than 50% of primary ovarian cancers, 25% of breast cancers, and approximately 5% of pancreatic and prostate cancers are associated with HR deficiency. If development is successful, the Pol-Theta inhibitor Novobiocin could be a new treatment option for more than a 100,000 newly diagnosed cancer patients per year in the US alone. Varsity plans to start the first in-patient clinical studies of Novobiocin in 2022.

Varsity adds Novobiocin to a pipeline of small molecule candidates under development as new therapies for treatment resistant cancers.

On February 7, 2022 Evogene Ltd. (NASDAQ-GM: EVGN) (TASE: EVGN), a leading computational biology company targeting to revolutionize life-science product development across several market segments reported that it will present a company overview at the Aegis Capital Corp. Virtual Conference to be held on February 25th at 9:00 Eastern (Press release, Evogene, FEB 7, 2022, View Source [SID1234607808]). The conference will span three days, starting on February 23rd until February 25th from 8:30AM until 5PM EST.

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Evogene’s presentation will be available by request to Aegis from February 23 to 25, 2022. The slide deck will also be made available on Evogene’s website at View Source

To access the event, please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system: Aegis Virtual Conference Calendar

On February 7, 2022 Kazia Therapeutics Limited (NASDAQ: KZIA; ASX: KZA), an oncology-focused drug development company, reported that CEO, Dr James Garner, will be presenting at the BIO CEO Conference, to be held in person and virtually in New York, NY, from 14-17 February 2022 (Press release, Kazia Therapeutics, FEB 7, 2022, View Source [SID1234607807]).

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Hosted annually by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) for over 20 years, the conference is focused on emerging public and private companies, offering a meeting place for institutional investors, industry analysts, and senior biotech executives. The conference draws biotech companies looking to make the connections needed to take their products to the next phase.

Kazia will be presenting in person on day one of the conference, Monday, 14 February. The presentation will provide an update on recent progress with Kazia’s two clinical-stage oncology programs and will cover some of the important catalysts expected during 2022.