On November 21, 2019 Immune-Onc Therapeutics, Inc. ("Immune-Onc") is a privately held cancer immunotherapy company reported to the discovery and development of novel biologic treatments for cancer patients (Press release, Immune-Onc Therapeutics, NOV 21, 2019, View Source [SID1234551587]). The company aims to translate unique scientific insights in myeloid cell biology and immune inhibitory receptors to discover and develop first-in-class biotherapeutics that disarm immune suppression in the tumor microenvironment. Immune-Onc has a promising pipeline built upon strategic collaborations and cutting-edge research from The University of Texas, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Its lead program, an antibody targeting LILRB4, is being developed to treat acute myeloid leukemia and other cancers. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Immune-Onc has assembled a diverse team with deep expertise in drug development and proven track records of success at leading biotechnology companies. For more information, please visit www.immune-onc.com.

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Company:

Immune-Onc Therapeutics, Inc.

Headquarters Address:

795 San Antonio Road

Palo Alto, CA 94303

Main Telephone:

16504571745

Website:

www.Immune-Onc.com

Type of Organization:

Private

Industry:

Biotechnology

Key Executives:

CEO: Charlene Liao

Public Relations

Contact:

Tara Cooper

Phone:

650-303-7306

Email:

[email protected]

On November 21, 2019 iOmx Therapeutics AG (iOmx), a biopharmaceutical company developing cancer therapeutics based on novel immune checkpoint targets, reported that its Vice President, Antibody Development, Stefanie Urlinger, PhD, delivered a podium presentation highlighting the discovery of IGSF11, a novel immune checkpoint molecule on tumor cells, using its iOTarg discovery platform at the 11th PEGS Europe Protein & Antibody Engineering Summit (PEGS Europe 2019) in Lisbon, 12-18 November, 2019 (Press release, iOmx Therapeutics, NOV 21, 2019, View Source [SID1234551604]).

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The podium presentation, titled, "A Comprehensive Screening Platform to Identify the Next Generation of Cancer Immunotherapy Targets," reports the identification of IGSF11, a postulated VISTA interaction partner, as an important immune checkpoint molecule on tumor cells using iOTarg, the company’s proprietary, high-throughput target discovery platform. In an MC38 murine colon adenocarcinoma mouse model, CRISPR knockout of IGSF11 resulted in a >70% reduction in tumor growth, independently validating the target. Interestingly, patients refractory to anti-PD1 or anti-CTLA4 therapies overexpress IGSF11 and exhibit poor progression-free survival.

Based on these findings, iOmx is developing a novel anti-IGSF11 antibody as monotherapy in patients with solid tumor indications that are resistant to PD-1/PD-L1 therapies. The company presented data showcasing their IGSF11-specific antibodies which block the interaction to VISTA and exhibit strong immune lysis of tumor cells in vitro. Additionally, beyond IGSF11, iOTarg resulted in the identification of other novel immune checkpoint targets and unique immune evasion biologies against which iOmx is pursuing first-in-class drug development projects – all in the pre-clinical stage.

"Current limitation of the approved immune checkpoint inhibitors to induce response in majority of cancer patients requires us to identify and drug additional key vulnerabilities in refractory tumors," said Nisit Khandelwal, Ph.D., co-founder and Senior Vice President of iOmx Therapeutics. "PEGS Europe 2019 Summit is an ideal event to showcase the ability of iOmx’ iOTarg genetic screening platform to systematically identify novel and druggable immune checkpoint targets, such as IGSF11, that are expressed by PD-L1 non-responsive tumors. Based on our findings, we have initiated pre-clinical development of a first-in-class IGSF11-targeting antibody that eliminates tumor induced immune suppression, especially in anti-PD-1 refractory tumors. Furthermore, we continue to investigate new immuno-oncology targets with our unique iOTarg discovery engine."

On November 21, 2019 Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE: EBS) reported its growth strategy over the next five years and announced its 2024 financial and operational goals during the company’s Analyst and Investor Day held in New York City (Press release, Emergent BioSolutions, NOV 21, 2019, View Source [SID1234551569]). Emergent’s senior management shared their vision for continuing to build leadership positions in select public health threat markets and contract development and manufacturing (CDMO), leveraging the company’s unique set of assets, and realizing sustained financial performance and shareholder value creation.

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Robert G. Kramer Sr., president and chief executive officer of Emergent BioSolutions, said, "Emergent has developed a growth strategy that supports our desire to make a significant impact on global public health in pursuit of our mission – to protect and enhance life. We are pleased to share this plan, which serves as a roadmap towards our long-term vision of becoming a Fortune 500 company recognized for protecting and enhancing life, driving innovation, and living our values. We are excited by the opportunities ahead and remain steadfastly committed to our patients, customers, employees, and communities."

2020-2024 Corporate Growth Strategy
The new five-year plan builds upon the successful execution of the previous 2016-2020 plan and is guided by a core strategy focused on five pillars:

Execute core business – Deliver core business in products and services;

Grow through M&A – Expand impact on patients and customers while profitably delivering incremental topline revenue;

Strengthen R&D portfolio – Ensure R&D becomes a more meaningful contributor to growth after 2024;

Build scalable capabilities – Invest in operational excellence and innovation to support a growing enterprise that will deliver greater impact; and

Evolve culture – Evolve the organization’s culture to support employee engagement and empowerment.

2024 Financial and Operational Goals
Under the plan, the company has established the following key financial and operational goals to be accomplished by year end 2024:

Generate total revenue of >$2 billion;

Achieve adjusted EBITDA margin of 27% to 30%;

Expand and build scalable leadership positions across current and new global public health threat markets; and

Invest in capabilities, innovation, and operational excellence.

Commenting on the 2024 goals, Richard S. Lindahl, executive vice president and chief financial officer, said, "Emergent has delivered consistent operational excellence and value creation for the past 21 years. Building on our strong financial foundation, we are committed to funding the company’s growth, outlined in our new five-year strategic plan, with continued focus on prudent capital deployment and increasing shareholder value. If successful, we would substantially expand our global impact on public health for the benefit of our patients, partners, and customers worldwide."

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The presentations delivered at the Analyst and Investor Day event today are available on the Company’s website at View Source A replay of the webcast of the event will be made available via the same link shortly after the event’s conclusion and will be accessible for the next six months.

On November 21, 2019 Vor Biopharma, an oncology company pioneering engineered hematopoietic stem cells (eHSCs) for the treatment of cancer, and MaxCyte, Inc., a global cell-based therapies and life sciences company, reported a clinical and commercial license agreement under which Vor will use MaxCyte’s Flow Electroporation technology to produce eHSCs and initiate Investigational New Drug (IND)-enabling studies to accelerate its progress towards the clinic (Press release, Vor BioPharma, NOV 21, 2019, View Source [SID1234551588]).

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Under the terms of the agreement, Vor obtains non-exclusive clinical and commercial use rights to MaxCyte’s Flow Electroporation technology and ExPERT platform to develop up to five engineered cell therapies, including VOR33, Vor’s lead eHSC candidate, which is in development for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). In return, MaxCyte will receive undisclosed development and approval milestones and sales-based payments in addition to other licensing fees.

Vor will use MaxCyte’s cell engineering platform to deliver its gene editing machinery into hematopoietic stem cells to remove biologically redundant cell surface proteins that are also expressed on blood cancer cells. Once the eHSCs are transplanted into a cancer patient, these cells are effectively hidden from complementary targeted therapies that target the relevant protein, while diseased cells are left vulnerable to attack. Vor’s approach thereby could unleash the potential of targeted therapies by broadening the therapeutic window and improving the utility of complementary targeted therapies.

"MaxCyte is a leader in GMP electroporation technology, and we are thrilled that this agreement provides us with long-term access to a platform technology applicable to a pipeline of eHSC programs used to treat AML and other blood cancers," said Sadik Kassim, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer of Vor. "As we build on promising in vivo data from our lead candidate VOR33, we can now expand our manufacturing capabilities to support later-stage studies, regulatory filings and commercialization of VOR33."

MaxCyte’s ExPERT instrument family represents the next generation of leading, clinically validated, electroporation technology for complex and scalable cellular engineering. By delivering high transfection efficiency with enhanced functionality, the ExPERT platform delivers the high-end performance essential to enable the next wave of biological and cellular therapeutics.

"We look forward to expanding our relationship with Vor Biopharma as the company pioneers a potential future standard of care in hematopoietic stem cell transplants for cancer patients in need," said Doug Doerfler, President & CEO of MaxCyte. "This agreement represents another key business milestone for MaxCyte, emphasizing the value of our technology platform applied to next-generation engineered cell therapies that may make a true difference in patient outcomes."

About VOR33
Vor’s lead product candidate, VOR33, consists of engineered hematopoietic stem cells (eHSCs) that lack the protein CD33. Once these cells are transplanted into a cancer patient, CD33 becomes a far more cancer-specific target, potentially avoiding toxicity to the normal blood and bone marrow associated with CD33-targeted therapies. In so doing, Vor aims to improve the therapeutic window and effectiveness of CD33-targeted therapies, thereby potentially broadening the clinical benefit to patients suffering from AML.

On November 21, 2019 Immunitas Therapeutics ("Immunitas"), a single cell genomics-based drug discovery company founded by Longwood Fund, reported a $39 million Series A financing led by Leaps by Bayer and Novartis Venture Fund and joined by additional investors including Evotec, M Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, and other institutional investors (Press release, Immunitas Therapeutics, NOV 21, 2019, View Source [SID1234551570]). The company plans to use this funding to advance its first programs, monoclonal antibody therapeutics with single agent activity in preclinical models of oncology, to clinical studies.

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Underlying the company’s programs is the unique drug development platform crafted by the Immunitas team along with Aviv Regev (Professor of Biology and Core Member of the Broad Institute and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute) that dissects the microenvironment of human tumors using single cell genomics-based approaches to identify novel immune targets. The Immunitas platform has generated fully humanized antibodies that act on these targets, advancing to human efficacy studies driven by specific clinical biomarkers, and a breadth of promising druggable cancer targets.

The scientific founders of Immunitas are pioneers in studying the immunobiology of human tumors, including the use of single cell genomics-based techniques and antibody-development techniques:

Kai Wucherpfennig M.D. Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of Cancer Immunology and Virology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School,
Mario Suvà M.D., Ph.D., an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital and at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and
Dane Wittrup, Ph.D., the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Single cell genomic sequencing has tremendous promise to help unravel the interactions between immune cells and cancer cells in tumors to advance cancer drug development but focusing it appropriately to discover meaningful new targets based on human biology has been challenging," said Dr. Wucherpfennig. "The Immunitas platform is designed to reveal novel and important adaptive and innate immune interactions with tumor cells, which may open up new possibilities in cancer therapy. My scientific co-founders and I look forward to continuing to work with the Immunitas team as they advance this powerful science."

"Our scientific founders are pioneers in the field of single cell sequencing and analysis. They have extensive expertise in deep computational biology, which has enabled us to discover novel therapeutic targets directly from human immunology," said Lea Hachigian, Ph.D., co-founder, director and President of Immunitas Therapeutics. "The data from this platform have also provided us with biomarkers for patient selection, which has potential to accelerate our development plans and provides improved chances for efficacy for individual patients."

Immunitas was founded to directly address the challenge of translating findings from laboratory research in model organisms to meaningful clinical advances in humans. Immunitas focuses on human samples, allowing the company to start with and stay closer to the most relevant and translatable biology for patients.

"One of today’s biggest challenges in oncology is how to efficiently and effectively move preclinical research into human therapies while avoiding the false signals often seen in animal models," said Dr. Jürgen Eckhardt, Head of Leaps by Bayer, Bayer AG’s strategic venture capital unit. "The scientific founders of Immunitas have elegantly solved this problem by dissecting the biology of immune cells in human tumors directly. We are excited to support this approach which has the potential to significantly improve cancer drug development."

Longwood-founded Immunitas also announced key senior management appointments as well as the Board of Directors of the company. Dr. Lea Hachigian is co-founder, director and President of Immunitas as well as a Principal at Longwood Fund. She is also a co-founder and director of TScan Therapeutics. Tarek Samad, Ph.D. is the Chief Scientific Officer at Immunitas Therapeutics. He has over two decades of experience in academia and industry leading small molecule and antibody biologic programs into the clinic. Amanda Wagner joins the company as Vice President of Strategy and Operations with over ten years of biotech experience in similar roles. The Board of Directors includes Dr. Laura Brass, Dr. Jürgen Eckhardt, Dr. Lea Hachigian, Dr. Lucio Iannone, Dr. Christoph Westphal, and Dr. Vincent Xiang.