On April 5, 2022 Enochian BioSciences, a company focused on gene-modified cellular and immune therapies for infectious diseases and cancer, reported that Dr. Serhat Gumrukçu, the Inventor and Co-Founder of the Company, delivered the concluding Plenary Lecture at the Innate Killer Summit in San Diego, California as an invited speaker (Link to Presentation.) (Press release, Enochian BioSciences, APR 5, 2022, View Source [SID1234611436])

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Dr. Gumrukçu’s scientific presentation focused on innovative clinical strategies he has designed to hyper-stimulate various components of the immune system, including those that are part of innate killer immunity.

Data were presented on a novel approach using Natural Killer (NK) cell and a subset of T-cells (known as Gamma Delta T-cells) derived from another person that induced control of HIV for 365 days in the blood of a person who was unable to achieve control with commonly used antiviral drugs due to resistance to them. Dr. Gumrukçu has completed an FDA pre-IND meeting and is in the process of preparing an Investigator Initiated IND. Enochian BioSciences owns the exclusive license for the technology.

There was an update on a published case report (Link to American Journal Case Reports) of a patient with recurrent glioblastoma treated with NK and dendritic cells (DC) derived from another person who is now tumor-free for 29 months. In addition, Dr. Gumrukçu presented new data on a patient with optic tract glioma for seven years who was treated with NK and DC from another person. For the first time, the size of the tumor decreased, and the patient has been in partial remission for five months. There was a substantial increase in the immune response to the cancer. Enochian BioSciences is developing and holds the Intellectual Property for an approach that genetically modifies the DC to, potentially, induce an even stronger immune response than was induced in those two individuals.

"Dr. Gumrukçu was invited and made the concluding speaker because of his pioneering work on novel clinical approaches, including with innate killer cells," said Dr. Ana Jewett, a member of the Scientific Program Committee for the Summit who chaired several sessions and is a renowned tumor immunologist and cell and gene therapy investigator at UCLA, "I am enthusiastic about my collaboration with Enochian BioSciences to advance their oncology pipeline, starting with pancreatic cancer."

Dr. Mark Dybul, the CEO of Enochian BioSciences said, "I believe it was fitting for the Summit organizers to recognize the brilliant scientific ideas of Dr. Gumrukçu. Enochian BioSciences looks forward to advancing as many of them as possible, potentially saving many, many lives."

On April 5, 2022 Curis, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRIS), a biotechnology company focused on the development of innovative therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, reported that James Dentzer, President and Chief Executive Officer of Curis, will present a company overview at the 21st Annual Needham Virtual Healthcare Conference (Press release, Curis, APR 5, 2022, View Source [SID1234611435]). The presentation will be available for on-demand viewing starting on Tuesday, April 12, 2022 at 8:45 a.m. ET.

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A live webcast of the presentation will be available under "Events & Presentations" in the Investors section of the Company’s website at www.curis.com. A replay of the webcast will be available on the Curis website for 90 days following the event.

On April 4, 2022 Guardant Health, Inc. (Nasdaq: GH), a leading precision oncology company, reported a partnership with Epic, the nation’s most widely used comprehensive health record, to integrate the company’s broad portfolio of cancer tests with Epic (Press release, Guardant Health, APR 4, 2022, View Source [SID1234612025]). This integration will make it easier for health systems, community healthcare providers and retail health clinics to make Guardant Health blood tests part of routine clinical care by providing direct ordering access and results delivery.

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"This partnership will allow us to provide a best-in-class customer experience for healthcare providers to easily order Guardant Health tests and access results quickly, giving them more time to focus on their patients," said Helmy Eltoukhy, Guardant Health co-CEO. "We are committed to providing the highest quality service to healthcare professionals, and the integration of our tests with Epic, which will include Guardant SHIELD, our blood test to screen for early signs of colorectal cancer, will help to increase the scale and adoption of our offerings in both community practices and large health systems."

Clinicians will be able to order Guardant Health tests electronically within Epic once the integration is complete in the third quarter of this year. In addition to Guardant SHIELD, clinicians will be able to order current flagship tests such as Guardant360 CDx and Guardant360 Response to help physicians inform treatment decisions for patients with advanced cancer, and Guardant Reveal to detect residual and recurrent disease in patients with early-stage cancer. This integration will ensure healthcare providers have easy access to test results and health information in one single, secure place so that they can quickly make informed treatment decisions for their patients.

"Our shared commitment to healthcare innovation makes this partnership a natural fit that will benefit clinicians and patients alike," said Alan Hutchison, vice president of population health at Epic. "Guardant Health’s integration with Epic will provide an easier and more efficient workflow for clinicians to order cancer tests and access real-time results, giving providers the information they need to make the best care decision for their patients."

On April 4, 2022 INmune Bio, Inc. (NASDAQ: INMB) ("INMB" or "the Company"), a clinical-stage immunology company focused on developing treatments that harness the patient’s innate immune system to fight disease, reported that key findings from the NK Cells in Solid Tumors workshop (Press release, INmune Bio, APR 4, 2022, View Source [SID1234611501]). Dr. Mark Lowdell, INmune Bio’s Chief Scientific Officer (CSO), led the workshop on the role of NK cells in treatment of solid tumors during the Innate Killer Summit in San Diego (March 30 -April 1, 2022).

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The conference is widely viewed as one of the most important in translational NK cell immunotherapy.

Two consistent themes of this year’s conference were the importance of memory-like NK cells and the poor in-vivo survival of adoptively transferred allogeneic NK cells, with or without genetic modification. Strategies to improve NK cell "fitness" and improve NK cell metabolism were at the forefront. NK cell dysfunction and poor survival in the recipient and, in particular the TME may be due to damaged mitochondria – considered the "powerplants" of the cell that are essential for survival. Dr. Lowdell observed that INKmune, unlike IL15 and other NK-activating cytokines, simultaneously upregulates all mitochondrial survival proteins and more than 40 nutrient receptors on the NK cell. These unique changes may help INKmune-primed NK cells survive and thrive in the hypoxic immunosuppressive TME. Data from patients treated with INKmune have shown tumor killing memory-like NK cells present in peripheral blood and bone marrow for at least 15 weeks after INKmune therapy and provoked a lot of discussion about whether INKmune can be used in combination with adoptive NK therapies to sustain the memory-like phenotype and increase survival.

"For NK cells to become relevant in the treatment of solid tumors, several problems must be solved," said Dr. Lowdell, CSO of INmune Bio. "At the workshop, we presented how INKmune, INmune Bio’s NK cell therapeutic, may solve these problems as demonstrated by published and unpublished pre-clinical and clinical data from the INKmune Phase I trial in high-risk MDS."

Dr. Lowdell’s presentation underscored the purpose of NK cell immunotherapy for solid tumors is to kill cancer cells in the tumor microenvironment (TME). He outlined three goals for NK cell immunotherapy in treatment of solid tumors, including increasing the ability of NK cells to infiltrate the tumor; improving the ability of NK cells to survive the hostile environment of the TME; and facilitating the killing of NK resistant cancer cells. Based on available evidence, INKmune-treated NK cells appear to solve two of the three problems – survival and killing NK resistant cancers.

"A common therapeutic strategy is giving ex vivo-activated NK cells from peripheral blood which are conditioned to normal oxygen levels. Hoping that these cells track to the tumor and aren’t inhibited by the hypoxic, immunosuppressive TME does not align with our understanding of tumor biology in patients," Dr. Lowdell posited during his talk. "Activation of tumor-resident NK cells in vivo is likely to be important for patient treatment and tumor-activated NK cells seem to be better than cytokine-primed NK cells in surviving the hostile hypoxic and immunosuppressive environment of the TME. As far as we know, INKmune is the only agent which can give the pleiotropic NK activating signals that improve NK function in the hostile immunosuppressive and hypoxic environment of the TME."

Dr. Lowdell also discussed therapeutic persistence, the period of time there are adequate numbers of functional tumor killing NK cells in the circulation, most probably a key metric of therapeutic efficiency. Up-regulated mitochondrial survival and nutrient receptor proteins should contribute to therapeutic persistence by polarizing INKmune-primed NK cells to long-term survival. He presented data showing that cytokine-primed NK cells do not upregulate mitochondrial survival proteins or nutrient proteins, which may make cytokine-primed NK cells more prone to death in-vivo.

"I came away from this meeting even more convinced that INKmune can have a major impact in current and future NK immunotherapies in hematological and solid tumors and with a list of potential new collaborators for our future trials", said Dr Lowdell.

Slides from Dr. Lowdell’s presentation can be reviewed by clicking here.

On April 4, 2022 The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) reported that it will host its Annual Meeting April 8-13, 2022. Light Chain Bioscience is very pleased to have Xavier Chauchet attend in-person (Presentation, Light Chain Bioscience, APR 4, 2022, View Source [SID1234611437]).

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Xavier will be presenting two posters #3225 and #3283 describing differentiating CD47xPD-L1 bispecific #antibody approaches, NI-2601 & NI-2901.

"NI-2601, an Fc-active CD47xPD-L1 bispecific antibody that selectively targets CD47 on PD-L1-positive tumors" (#3283) will be exposed and presented on April 12 between 1:30-5:00 p.m.

↠ Read 1st poster – Poster section 32 : Will be available on website from April 9th.

"NI-2901, a CD47xPD-L1 bispecific antibody for dual immune checkpoint blockade with fine-tuned affinity to reduce erythrocyte binding and improve biodistribution" (#3225) will be exposed and presented on April 12 between 1:30-5:00 p.m.

:↠ Read 2nd poster – Poster section 32 :Will be available on website from April 9th.

Ernest N. Morial Convention Center New Orleans, Louisiana

900 Convention Center Blvd, New Orleans, LA 70130, United States