On December 23, 2020 NETRIS Pharma, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing next generation molecules targeting cancer, reported the closing of a €16.1m Series A financing and the reinforcement of its Board of Directors (Press release, Netris Pharma, DEC 23, 2020, View Source [SID1234611184]). The round was subscribed by historical investors converting their outstanding loans, and joined by New Investors collectively investing €7.5m.

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Patrick Mehlen, NETRIS Pharma Founder and CEO, commented "NETRIS Pharma is proud to have achieved major milestones in these highly turbulent times and thank BPDG for its active role in this fundraising process. Further to the signature of a collaboration Agreement with MSD for the coming Phase 1B/2 trial in combination with Pembrolizumab,such funding creates opportunities to accelerate the clinical development plan of NETRIS Pharma in other indications of interest."

Banque Profil de Gestion (BPDG) acted as the sole advisor for the fundraising process led by Gianpaolo Chiriano, Managing Director and Head of Healthcare & Life Sciences at BPDG, who added: "we are glad to have contributed to the achievement of this milestone for NETRIS Pharma with the hope to impact lives of cancer patients."

Netris Pharma was founded as a spin-off of Centre Léon Bérard to develop a complete novel approach in oncology based on the biology of dependence receptors. The company, driven by scientific excellence and strong clinical insights, successfully develop NP137 targeting Netrin-1, which exhibited encouraging signs of clinical activity in its Phase 1A trial and extensions.

Netris Pharma will primarily use the proceeds of the Series A to conduct the planned Phase1B /2 clinical trial to investigate the safety and efficacy of NP137 in combination with KEYTRUDA in patients with advanced/metastatic uterine tumors and for general corporate purposes.

On December 23, 2020 Novocure (NASDAQ: NVCR) reported that it will participate virtually in the 39th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on January 11 through January 14, 2021 (Press release, NovoCure, DEC 23, 2020, View Source [SID1234573232]). William Doyle, Novocure’s Executive Chairman, will speak on behalf of the company and address questions from analysts at 8:20 a.m. EST on January 12, 2021. Management will also participate in one-on-one meetings with investors throughout the event.

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A live audio webcast of the presentation and all presentation materials can be accessed from the Investor Relations page of Novocure’s website, www.novocure.com/investor-relations/, and will be available for replay for at least 14 days following the event. Novocure has used, and intends to continue to use, its investor relations website as a means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with its disclosure obligations under Regulation FD.

On December 23, 2020 NETRIS Pharma, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing next generation molecules targeting cancer, reported the closing of a €16.1m Series A financing and the reinforcement of its Board of Directors (Press release, Netris Pharma, DEC 23, 2020, View Source [SID1234573284]). The round was subscribed by historical investors converting their outstanding loans, and joined by New Investors collectively investing €7.5m.

Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
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

                  Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!

Patrick Mehlen, NETRIS Pharma Founder and CEO, commented "NETRIS Pharma is proud to have achieved major milestones in these highly turbulent times and thank BPDG for its active role in this fundraising process. Further to the signature of a collaboration Agreement with MSD for the coming Phase 1B/2 trial in combination with Pembrolizumab,such funding creates opportunities to accelerate the clinical development plan of NETRIS Pharma in other indications of interest."

Banque Profil de Gestion (BPDG) acted as the sole advisor for the fundraising process led by Gianpaolo Chiriano, Managing Director and Head of Healthcare & Life Sciences at BPDG, who added: "we are glad to have contributed to the achievement of this milestone for NETRIS Pharma with the hope to impact lives of cancer patients."

Netris Pharma was founded as a spin-off of Centre Léon Bérard to develop a complete novel approach in oncology based on the biology of dependence receptors. The company, driven by scientific excellence and strong clinical insights, successfully develop NP137 targeting Netrin-1, which exhibited encouraging signs of clinical activity in its Phase 1A trial and extensions.

Netris Pharma will primarily use the proceeds of the Series A to conduct the planned Phase1B /2 clinical trial to investigate the safety and efficacy of NP137 in combination with KEYTRUDA in patients with advanced/metastatic uterine tumors and for general corporate purposes.

On December 23, 2020 A2 Biotherapeutics (www.a2bio.com), a biotechnology company developing innovative cell therapies for cancer patients with solid tumors, reported that it has entered into an agreement with Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, in which A2 will continue research and preclinical development of its undisclosed Tmod cell therapy candidate (its third candidate therapy), with the parties to co-fund A2’s clinical development and allogeneic manufacturing activities through Phase 1 (Press release, A2 Biotherapeutics, DEC 23, 2020, View Source [SID1234573233]). Merck will assist with preclinical development and has the option to exclusively develop, manufacture and commercialize the candidate following Phase 1.

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A2’s Tmod engineered T cells uniquely combine a potent activating mechanism to kill tumor cells with a blocking mechanism that protects normal cells from harm by exploiting the loss of genetic material in tumors. Tmod engineered T cells have the potential to make existing targets safer and more effective by protecting normal cells and delivering a more therapeutically effective dose to kill the tumor cells.

"In vitro studies have provided compelling evidence supporting the view that Tmod-based cell therapy can distinguish tumor cells from normal cells, across multiple tumor targets," said Dr. Roger M. Perlmutter, President, Merck Research Laboratories. "We hope that the combined efforts of Merck Research Laboratories and A2 Biotherapeutics will enable the application of this ingenious approach to improve the treatment of patients suffering from refractory solid tumors."

Under the agreement A2 will receive an upfront payment, and will be eligible for opt-in and milestone payments, plus royalties on sales of any approved product. A2 will also receive from Merck an equity investment and reimbursement of certain expenses. Merck has the option to designate a new Tmod program with increased economic terms.

"This transaction extends our cash runway on the heels of our successful $71.5M Series B in October. It also brings Merck’s immunotherapy and other expertise for the Tmod candidate especially in the later stages of development, manufacturing and commercialization and enables A2 to build allogeneic product development and manufacturing capabilities," said Scott Foraker, President and CEO of A2 Biotherapeutics.

A2 will continue to pursue its first two Tmod product candidates using its autologous manufacturing to reduce the number of variables for clinical proof of concept and expedite timelines. A2 anticipates that the successful development of its allogeneic Tmod candidate therapy will enable subsequently developed allogeneic Tmod candidates.

On December 23, 2020 Cothera Bioscience, the parent company of Percans Oncology, reported that completed a series-B financing of nearly 30 million dollars (Press release, Cothera Bioscience, DEC 23, 2020, View Source [SID1234618853]). Led by Tsingsong Capital, this round of financing involves several domestic and foreign funds companies, such as CMB International, Sherpa Healthcare Partners, New World Investment, Langsheng Investment, Kunlun Fund, and Harbinger Venture. Old shareholders Legend Capital and Legend Star also participated in this investment as before. The funds raised will mainly be used to accelerate the global clinical development of the company’s multiple tumor-targeted innovative drugs.

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Founded by the core members of the founding team of the formerly well-known CRO CrownBio, Cothera Bioscience is an innovation-driven cancer drug company, focusing on the research and development of noveltumor-targeted drugs. By combining conditional reprogramming primary tumor cell culture technology and high-content drug screening system, the i-CR technology platform independently developed by Percans Oncology proliferate the primary tumor cells in vitro in a high-efficiency and undifferentiated way and can preserve the heterogeneity of the patient’s tumor.. The platform also uses patient primary tumor cells to screen efficient drug in vitro with a high-content drug screening system, making it more suitable for individualized drug screening and new drug development for clinical patients. Through cooperation with top domestic oncology medical centers to carry out a number of prospective comparative clinical trials, Cothera Bioscience has preliminarily proved that the i-CR system can effectively predict the actual clinical response of drugs, and it is expected to greatly improve the efficiency and clinical success rate of new anti-tumor drug development.

Taking advantage of the high correlation between the i-CR technology platform and clinical drug response, Cothera Bioscience has developed a series of new anti-cancer drugs in the fields of synthetic lethality and immunotherapy. And a number of international and domestic patents have been applied for the results of early research and development.

PC-002, the core product of Cothera Bioscience, is a first-in-class small molecule drug for MYC gene mutation tumors. MYC protein is highly expressed in more than 50% of tumors and is one of the most important "undruggable" tumor targets. PC-002 targets MYC protein degradation through a unique MOA and selectively induces MYC-dependent tumor cell to undergo apoptosis. PC-002 is about to undergo a Phase 2 clinical trial in the United States, and is expected to be quickly approved with the results of the Phase 2 trial as a blockbuster product for pan-cancer. The company’s another product, CTB-02, aiming at pan-KRAS variant bowel cancer and non-small cell lung cancer, is expected to enter Phase 1 clinical trials in Australia in 2021.

Dr. Wu Yue, co-founder and CEO of Cothera Bioscience, said: "Thank all investors for your support to the company. We will work together to explore new areas of new anti-tumor drug development and discover new values. The achievements of Cothera Bioscience come from the courage and strength to persist in science and innovation, and do what others can’t do. We will continue to base ourselves on the development of the world’s first-in-class drugs, give full play to the barriers and expertise of translational medicine that the company has accumulated over the years, fully understand the development of new drugs based on the solid drug mechanism research and tumor biology cognition to greatly increase its success rate, exploit the global market with innovative products, and strive to solve the unmet medical needs of cancer patients."

Dr. Zhang Song, a partner of Tsingsong Capital, said: "We are optimistic about the rich drug development experience and profound understanding about translational tumor medicine of the original founding team of Crown Bioscience International headed by Dr. Wu Yue, and firmly support the Cothera team’s exploration and drug development of multiple "undruggable" targets based on a unique drug screening system. Tsingsong Capital hopes to cooperate with the team for a long time from now on to help the company develop the first-in-class tumor-targeted drugs on a global scale in the context of intensified competition in the innovative drug market, and looks forward to working with the company to bring new breakthroughs in tumor treatment."

Zhang Xiao, Managing Director of China eCapital, said: "Cothera Bioscience has a world-class translational medicine team. Based on its unique i-CR drug screening platform, Cothera Bioscience has been focusing on drug development for undruggable targets for many years, and has made important progress in the research and development of new drugs for targets such as Myc and kras. We are honored to be able to help Cothera Bioscience complete this round of financing. And we are looking forward to more clinical progress of the company in the future, which will benefit more patients."