On April 7, 2022 CARsgen Therapeutics Holdings Limited (Stock Code: 2171.HK), a company focused on innovative CAR T cell therapies for the treatment of hematologic malignancies and solid tumors, reported that Dr. Raffaele Baffa ("Dr. Baffa") has been appointed as the Chief Medical Officer ("CMO") of the Company, responsible for overseeing the global clinical development strategies and operations for the Company’s innovative pipeline product candidates (Press release, Carsgen Therapeutics, APR 7, 2022, View Source [SID1234611617]). Dr. Baffa will report to Dr. Zonghai Li, Founder, Chairman of the Board, CEO, CSO of CARsgen Therapeutics Holdings Limited.

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Dr. Baffa has rich experiences in pharmaceutical industry and research institutes, taking various leadership positions in multi-national corporations and biotech companies. Prior to joining CARsgen, Dr. Baffa served as Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President of Research & Development at Ziopharm Oncology (NASDAQ: ZIOP), which was rebranded to Alaunos in January 2022. (NASDAQ: TCRT). Prior to Ziopharm Oncology, Dr. Baffa was Head of Research & Development and Chief Medical Officer in Medisix Therapeutics, a company focused on developing novel immune cell therapies. Dr. Baffa was the Vice President, Therapeutic Area Head of Oncology, Global Clinical Development of Shire Pharmaceuticals, and following the acquisition of the oncology division by Servier Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Baffa served as the Chief Medical Officier of Servier Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Baffa has also held leadership positions at well-known pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer and Sanofi.

Dr. Baffa earned an M.D. from University of Padova, School of Medicine and a Ph.D. in biology and molecular pathology from University of Parma in Italy.

Dr. Zonghai Li, Founder, Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Scientific Officer of CARsgen Therapeutics Holdings Limited, said, "We warmly welcome Dr. Baffa to join CARsgen. Dr. Baffa is a medical professional and industry veteran with extensive experiences in clinical development and translational sciences in the field of oncology and cellular immunotherapy. Dr. Baffa brings a wealth of clinical, medical, and leadership experiences from multinational corporations and biotechnology companies. Dr. Baffa joins us at an exciting time as the clinical trials for both CT053 and CT041 are progressing in North America and being explored in other territories. Dr. Baffa’s joining will further accelerate the global clinical development of our innovative product candidates."

Dr. Raffaele Baffa, Chief Medical Officer of CARsgen Therapeutics Holdings Limited, said, "I am very excited to join CARsgen. As one of the leading companies in cell therapies globally, CARsgen has developed a rich and differentiated product pipeline and a suite of exciting technology platforms such as THANK-uCAR for allogeneic CAR T and LADAR for precise targeting. CARsgen has also shown big ambitions with continuous investment for the global market, such as the establishment of the manufacturing facility in the United States. I look forward to working closely with colleagues in CARsgen and external partners to accelerate CARsgen’s global clinical development and bring more innovative products to cancer patients."

On April 7, 2022 CytoImmune Therapeutics, a clinical-stage immunotherapy company that is developing a novel class of engineered natural killer (NK) cell-based cancer therapies, reported that Christina Coughlin, M.D., Ph.D., chief executive officer, will participate in the following April investor conferences (Press release, CytoImmune Therapeutics, APR 7, 2022, View Source [SID1234611613]):

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Locust Walk Stem Cell Tx Conference in Partnership with Harvard Stem Cell Institute (formal presentation) on Monday, April 11, 2022, at 11:00 a.m. ET;
Needham 21st Annual Virtual Healthcare Conference’s "NK Therapeutics Panel" on Thursday, April 14, 2022, at 11:45 a.m. ET; and,
Chardan Annual Genetic Medicines & Cell Therapy Manufacturing Summit (fireside chat) on Monday, April 25, 2022, at 9:00 a.m. ET.

On April 7, 2022 Adicet Bio, Inc. (Nasdaq: ACET), a clinical stage biotechnology company discovering and developing first-in-class allogeneic gamma delta chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies for cancer, reported that company management will participate in two upcoming investor conferences in April (Press release, Adicet Bio, APR 7, 2022, View Source [SID1234611612]).

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Details of the events are as follows:

Canaccord Genuity 2022 Horizons in Oncology Virtual Conference, April 14, 2022
Chen Schor, President and Chief Executive Officer, will participate in a panel discussion titled, "Gamma Delta T-cells: A differentiated approach" on Thursday, April 14, 2022, at 12:00 PM ET.

2022 Jefferies Biotech on the Bay Summit, April 26-27, 2022
Adicet’s management team will participate in 1×1 investor meetings at the St. Regis, Bal Harbour in Miami, Florida on April 27, 2022.

On April 7, 2022 Synthekine Inc., an engineered cytokine therapeutics company, reported five poster presentations based on research spanning each of its three distinct cytokine engineering platforms at the upcoming American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) Annual Meeting 2022 taking place in New Orleans, LA from April 8-13, 2022 (Press release, Synthekine, APR 7, 2022, View Source [SID1234611610]).

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"Over the past year, we have made advances with all three of our platforms, including moving our first cytokine partial agonist into the clinic, advancing a novel solid tumor cell therapy program using our orthogonal IL-2 receptor/ligand system into preclinical studies, and establishing our first partnership for surrogate cytokine agonists," said Debanjan Ray, Chief Executive Officer of Synthekine. "We are excited to present updates across all of our platforms at AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) 2022 to showcase the progress we are making to develop biased cytokine therapeutics and advance cytokine science."

Details are as follows and available on the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) online itinerary planner:

Title: Trial in Progress: A Phase 1a/1b study of STK-012, an α/β IL-2 receptor selective partial agonist as monotherapy and in combination with pembrolizumab in advanced solid tumors (NCT05098132)
Session Title: Phase I Trials in Progress 2
Session Date & Time: April 13, 2022, 9:00 AM – 12:30 PM CT
Location: First floor exhibit hall D-H, poster section 35 (poster board: 5)
Abstract Number: CT244
Summary: A first-in-human, open-label, dose escalation and expansion study in adults with advanced solid tumors (NCT05098132). The objectives of this study are to evaluate the safety, pharmacokinetics, immunogenicity, preliminary efficacy, and pharmacodynamics of STK-012 as monotherapy and in combination with pembrolizumab. We announced dosing of the first patient earlier this year.

Title: Engineered human IL-2/IL-2Rβ orthogonal pairs selectively enhance anti-GPC3 CAR T cells to drive complete responses in solid epithelial tumor models
Session Title: Adoptive Cell Therapy 3
Session Date & Time: April 12, 2022, 9:00 AM – 12:30 PM CT
Location: First floor exhibit hall D-H, poster section 35 (poster board: 15)
Abstract Number: 2824
Summary: Here we demonstrate the ability of our orthogonal IL-2 system to enhance the anti-tumor activity and persistence of anti-glypican 3 (GPC3) CAR T cells in human hepatocellular cancer models leading to tumor rejection in the majority of mice. These findings demonstrate that the orthogonal IL-2 system has the potential to improve the efficacy and durability of CAR T therapy for solid tumor targets such as GPC3 by selectively expanding CAR-T cells in vivo, driving CAR-T cells into the tumor, and activating CAR-T cells in the tumor microenvironment.

Title: Orthogonal IL-2/IL-2Rβ signaling in adoptively transferred T cells controls tumor growth without the need for lymphodepletion in a B16 tumor model
Session Title: Adoptive Cell Therapy 2
Session Date & Time: April 10, 2022, 1:30 PM – 5:00 PM CT
Location: First floor exhibit hall D-H, poster section 37 (poster board: 21)
Abstract Number: 586
Summary: We have previously shown a human orthogonal IL-2 receptor/ligand system can selectively proliferate and activate adoptively transferred T-cells (ACTs) without peripheral expansion of native lymphocytes. We have also developed a mouse orthogonal IL-2 receptor/ligand system to show in immune competent mice that the approach can additionally obviate the requirement of lymphodepletion in adoptive cell therapies to improve cell engraftment, persistence and efficacy of ACTs.

Title: IL-2Rβ/IL-2Rγ synthetic cytokines induce activation of human T and NK cells
Session Title: Immunomodulatory Agents and Interventions 3
Session Date & Time: April 13, 2022, 9:00 AM – 12:30 PM CT
Location: First floor exhibit hall D-H, poster section 38 (poster board: 5)
Abstract Number: 4225
Summary: We have generated a series of functional IL-2Rβ/IL-2Rγ surrogate cytokine agonists comprising dimers of heavy chain single domain antibodies (VHH) specific to IL-2Rβ and IL-2Rγ. The surrogate cytokine agonists show a variety of signaling strengths and bias, demonstrating the diversity of molecules that can be generated with this platform.

Title: IL10/IL2 surrogate cytokine agonists
Session Title: Preclinical Immunotherapy
Session Date & Time: April 8, 2022, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM CT
Location: E-poster website
Abstract Number: 5544
Summary: Designing surrogate cytokine agonists that pair non-natural cytokine receptors allows for generating molecules that can decouple the pleiotropy of cytokines by preferentially stimulating the desired cell population. Here, we have generated IL10Rα/IL2Rγ surrogate cytokine agonists that are biologically active and signal with varying strengths in T cells with little to no activity on monocytes, thus providing an opportunity to decouple the pleiotropy of IL10 and bias its activity toward cell populations associated with anti-tumor efficacy.

E-posters will be released on April 8, 2022 at 12:00 PM CT, and will be available to registered attendees through July 13, 2022.

On April 7, 2022 Ultivue, an industry leader in multiplexing tools for tissue biomarker analysis, and Paige, the global leader in AI-based diagnostic software in pathology, reported a partnership to collaborate on the co-development and co-marketing of AI-powered spatial immunophenotype capabilities to pharmaceutical and research customers (Press release, Ultivue, APR 7, 2022, View Source [SID1234611609]).

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Collaborative efforts will initially focus on the development of AI to enable improved understanding of the tumor microenvironment and support the interpretation of Ultivue’s novel multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF) immuno-oncology biomarker panels.

The Paige portfolio includes the Paige Platform, a comprehensive imaging solution composed of the FDA-cleared and CE-marked FullFocus, an intuitive and responsive viewer for pathology scans that supports primary diagnosis together with a data management solution for storage of pathology scans. The fast, zero-footprint, scanner-agnostic viewer, storage capabilities and AI-based diagnostic software help pathologists review cases and support their overall workflow.

Ultivue, a leader in advancing precision medicine solutions by accelerating tissue biomarker discovery and validation, develops unique platform agnostic solutions for use in both mIF imaging and spatial phenomics. Its proprietary InSituPlex technology, designed for fast and comprehensive exploration of biologically relevant targets, up to 12-plex, with same slide-H&E analysis in precious tissue samples combines the power of computational pathology & spatial biology to guide translational science in immuno-oncology.

"This collaboration with Paige is an exciting milestone for Ultivue as we consider the evolving impact of AI and deep learning tools on histopathological images in clinical settings," said Jacques Corriveau, CEO, Ultivue. "Importantly, our aligned goals are to facilitate the decentralization and democratization of the generation and analysis of complex spatial data."

"The combination of Ultivue’s robust biomarker detection capabilities and Paige’s AI-enabled computational pathology technology allows us to deliver new products that will elevate how immuno-oncology research is done today," said David Klimstra, M.D., Founder and Chief Medical Officer at Paige. "By uniting two platform-agnostic technologies, we are well-positioned to enable broad adoption of our AI-powered biomarker imaging solutions."