On December 16, 2019 Immune Therapeutics, Inc. (OTCQB: IMUN) ("Immune", "IMUN" or the "Company") and Aletheia Therapeutics Corp. ("Aletheia"), a privately held development-stage oncology therapeutics company, reported that Immune will acquire Aletheia in an all-stock transaction (Press release, Immune Therapeutics, DEC 16, 2019, View Source [SID1234552398]). Pursuant to completion of a definitive agreement, Immune will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Aletheia in exchange for Immune common stock . In connection with the acquisition, the Aletheia management team will join the leadership of the combined Company as well as selected Board members of Aletheia.

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Over the past several years researchers have demonstrated that cancer is inherently heterogenous and a single tumor can have up to one hundred different cell phenotypes. This knowledge has led to a new approach in cancer therapy in that targeting several different biological targets in cancer provides for better efficacy and lower toxicity. Specifically, a combination of drugs that each target an independent critical pathway in cancer growth is becoming widely recognized as the future of cancer treatment. The combined company will be focused on developing and commercializing precision cancer therapies by simultaneously targeting two or more of the following biological targets depending on the make-up of a patients’ cancer: DNA repair, T-cell activation, metabolic dysfunction, angiogenesis, apoptosis or inflammation.

"With this acquisition we will be able to develop a diverse platform of therapies that target multiple critical biological pathways that will be designed for an individual’s cancer," said Michael Handley, chief executive officer and president, Immune Therapeutics. "The combination of Aletheia’s diverse oncology product pipeline with Immune’s Lodonal and MENK product candidates will create an industry leading oncology company."

"Following an extensive evaluation and diligence process, the Immune Board of Directors concluded that the acquisition of Aletheia, with a strong platform technology, seasoned leadership team, and compelling clinical development plan, offered an excellent opportunity to create shareholder value for Immune," stated Dr. Roscoe Moore, the chairman of Immunes Board of Directors. "We believe Aletheia represents an attractive acquisition target for Immune, offering a novel approach to creating precision therapies for cancer patients with unmet medical needs."

Under the initial terms announced today, Immune, through a subsidiary, will initiate an offer to acquire all outstanding shares of Aletheia. The closing of the offer will be subject to certain conditions, including completing due diligence, the employment of the Aletheia management team to Immune management team and the assignment of all intellectual property to Immune. Furthermore, Aletheia has signed definitive stock purchase agreement with an investor group for $25 million that should fund before the end of the year. Once the acquisition is complete Aletheia and Immune will be funded with sufficient capital to execute on the product development strategy in 2020. The acquisition is expected to close early in the first quarter of 2020.

On December 16, 2019 Sysmex Inostics reported that new data presented by Dr. Ben Ho Park, Professor of Medicine and Director of Precision Oncology at Vanderbilt University and colleagues at the recent San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) in San Antonio, Texas demonstrated a potential utility for monitoring tumor-specific mutations (TSMs) in the circulation of early stage triple-negative breast cancer patients (Press release, Sysmex Inostics, DEC 16, 2019, View Source [SID1234552414]). The investigators utilized Sysmex Inostics’ highly sensitive SafeSEQ technology to detect rare variants down to 0.05% mutant allele fraction (MAF) to explore the rate of detection of ctDNA variants independent of the need for a tissue biopsy.

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This initial data was generated as a pilot investigation as part of the PREDICT DNA trial ("Pathologic Response Evaluation and Detection In Circulating Tumor DNA"), the first prospective, multi-center study designed to verify cell-free circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) as a biomarker for treatment response and recurrence in early stage breast cancer, with the primary aim of determining the negative predictive value of a negative ctDNA result after neoadjuvant therapy for the achievement of pathologic complete response. Essentially the trial measures whether patients who undergo neoadjuvant chemotherapy to treat tumors prior to surgery still have ctDNA in their blood after the therapy but before surgery. Dr. Park shared, "We give chemotherapy to early stage breast cancer patients and probably 70 percent of those patients don’t need it, but we generally can’t define who has micro-metastatic disease and who doesn’t." The PREDICT DNA trial is aiming to understand whether ultrasensitive next-generation sequencing with a SafeSEQ targeted cancer mutation panel can identify and monitor ctDNA of early-stage breast cancer patients to more precisely administer neoadjuvant therapy and surgery in newly diagnosed patients.

A total of 228 patients with Stage II and III triple-negative or HER2-positive breast cancer have been enrolled at 22 sites, of which 77 with matched pre- and post-neoadjuvant therapy samples were available at the time of the pilot study. Using SafeSEQ, tumor-specific mutations were identified in 48% (37/77) of the pre therapy samples, of which 89% had detectable plasma TP53 mutations, 11% had PIK3CA mutations, and 11% had co-occurring TP53 and PIK3CA mutations. A cohort of patient plasma specimens underwent orthogonal testing with OncoBEAM digital PCR technology, with 100% concordance of results with SafeSEQ.

The authors of the study concluded that SafeSEQ’s ultrasensitive detection of ctDNA has ‘significant clinical implications as an affordable and non-invasive first-pass assay in patients with sparse tumor biopsy tissue’. This preliminary data also demonstrates clinical feasibility of identifying tumor-specific mutations in individuals using minimally-invasive liquid biopsy before neoadjuvant treatment for personalized disease response monitoring without the need for biopsy tissue for NGS analysis.

"There is a paramount need for prospective studies using liquid biopsy," said Dr. Ben Ho Park, Professor of Medicine and Director of Precision Oncology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center. "These exciting preliminary results from the PREDICT DNA Trial represent an important first step in understanding the role of liquid biopsy testing for the management of early stage breast cancer and helping the medical community map out a path to make precision medicine a reality for patients across the continuum of care."

Presentation Details: Saturday 14 December 2019 7am – 9am, Poster Session 6, P6-10-05

Hunter, N. et al (2019) Pathologic Response Evaluation and Detection In Circulating Tumor DNA (PREDICT DNA): Initial results piloting a tissue-biopsy independent method of identifying and monitoring tumor-specific mutations in early stage breast cancer: TBCRC 040 Presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in San Antonio, Texas. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02743910

This work supported by the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium.

On December 16, 2019 Salarius Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: SLRX), a clinical-stage biotechnology company targeting cancers caused by mis-regulated gene expression, reported that its lead investigational drug candidate, Seclidemstat, has been granted Fast Track Designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of patients with Ewing sarcoma who have relapsed or are refractory to standard-of-care therapy (Press release, Flex Pharma, DEC 16, 2019, View Source [SID1234552381]). Seclidemstat, a potent reversible LSD1 inhibitor, is the subject of an ongoing Phase 1/2 clinical study in Ewing sarcoma.

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David Arthur, President and Chief Executive Officer of Salarius, stated, "Securing FDA Fast Track Designation for Seclidemstat in Ewing sarcoma is an achievement for Salarius in the ongoing development of the drug and recognition that there is an unmet need to bring much needed hope to patients and their families suffering through this devastating disease. Coupled with Seclidemstat’s previously granted Orphan Drug Designation and Rare Pediatric Disease Designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, we feel well positioned to take advantage of the FDA’s expedited programs for drug development and review."

"Ewing sarcoma is a rare and deadly bone cancer that most often strikes children and young adults and for which there are no targeted therapies approved. Seclidemstat has demonstrated a potential to address this considerable unmet need, and we look forward to rapidly advancing its development so that it soon may be available to those patients most in need," stated Damon Reed, M.D., Director of the Adolescent and Young Adult Program at the Moffitt Cancer Center and Principle Investigator of the Salarius Ewing sarcoma clinical trial.

Fast Track is a process designed by the FDA to expedite the development and review of new drugs with the potential to treat serious or life-threatening conditions and fill unmet medical needs. The aim is to streamline regulatory submissions and enable more frequent communications with the agency to assure that questions and issues are resolved quickly, which often leads to earlier drug approval and access by patients.

About Seclidemstat
Seclidemstat is a first-in-class, oral, small molecule designed for the reversible and noncompetitive inhibition of the LSD1 enzyme. Seclidemstat is based on the research of Dr. Sunil Sharma, Salarius’ co-founder, into LDS1 inhibition during his tenure at the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute. As a reversible inhibitor, Seclidemstat could offer more efficacy, more flexible dosing and less toxicity. Salarius expects to release early cohort data early next year from its Ewing sarcoma study and a second Phase 1 clinical study in advanced solid tumors, including prostate, breast and ovarian cancers. A preclinical program in glioblastoma is underway at the Barrow Neurological Institute ‘s Ivy Brain Tumor Center.

More information about Salarius’ ongoing Ewing sarcoma trial is available at ClinicalTrials.gov and on the company website, salariuspharma.com. Active clinical trial sites include, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, OH, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, FL; Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles in Los Angeles, CA; Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL; Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA; MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX; and the Sarcoma Oncology Center in Santa Monica, CA.

On December 16, 2019 Kura Oncology, Inc. (Nasdaq: KURA), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of precision medicines for the treatment of cancer, reported that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation to the Company’s lead drug candidate, tipifarnib, for the treatment of patients with HRAS mutant head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) after progression on platinum therapy (Press release, Kura Oncology, DEC 16, 2019, View Source [SID1234552399]).

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"We are very encouraged by our growing body of clinical data for tipifarnib in HRAS mutant HNSCC and believe that the FDA’s Fast Track designation puts us one step closer to delivering a precision medicine treatment for patients with this devastating disease," said Antonio Gualberto, M.D., Ph.D., Head of Development and Chief Medical Officer of Kura Oncology. "We continue to work with regulatory authorities in the U.S. and abroad in our effort to bring tipifarnib to patients as quickly as possible."

Fast Track designation is granted by the FDA for products that are intended for the treatment of serious or life-threatening disease or conditions, which demonstrate the potential to address an unmet medical need. The designation offers the opportunity for frequent interactions with the FDA to discuss the drug’s development plan and ensure collection of appropriate data needed to support drug approval, as well as eligibility for rolling submission of a New Drug Application.

AIM-HN Enrollment Guidance

The Company also provided enrollment guidance for AIM-HN, its ongoing registration-directed trial of tipifarnib in patients with recurrent or metastatic HRAS mutant HNSCC. The global, multi-center trial was initiated in November 2018 and was originally projected to take approximately two years to fully enroll. Based on a recent evaluation of current enrollment rates, the Company now expects the trial to complete enrollment in the first quarter of 2021. The slower pace of enrollment is primarily due to delays in site activation and a higher than anticipated screen failure rate. The trial is now open in more than 81 clinical sites in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

"Although we experienced some delays in site activation, we’re encouraged to have the vast majority of the participating sites now open, with a corresponding increase in the rate of screening," said Kathleen Ford, Chief Operating Officer of Kura Oncology. "We recently presented impressive data from our Phase 2 trial in the same patient population and we believe that awareness of these data will continue to increase HRAS mutation testing and enrollment. Enrollment in AIM-HN remains our top priority and we remain steadfast in our commitment to bring tipifarnib to patients with HRAS mutant HNSCC for whom no treatment options are specifically indicated."

In addition, Kura plans to expand its targeted field-based medical science liaison team to help educate oncology practices on the importance of HRAS testing. The Company believes that this will provide HNSCC-treating physicians and their patients with more information about their diagnoses and enable them to make more educated decisions about their care, including potential clinical trial enrollment.

About Tipifarnib

Kura Oncology’s lead drug candidate, tipifarnib, is a potent, selective and orally bioavailable inhibitor of farnesyl transferase in-licensed from Janssen in December 2014. Previously, tipifarnib was studied in more than 5,000 cancer patients and showed compelling and durable anti-cancer activity in certain patient subsets; however, no molecular mechanism of action had been determined that could explain its clinical activity across a range of solid tumor and hematologic indications. Leveraging advances in next generation sequencing as well as emerging information about cancer genetics and tumor biology, the Company is seeking to identify those patients most likely to benefit from tipifarnib. Kura has received multiple issued patents for tipifarnib, providing patent exclusivity in the U.S. and foreign countries.

On December 16, 2019 Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:DCPH) reported the submission of a New Drug Application (NDA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for ripretinib, the Company’s investigational broad-spectrum KIT and PDGFRα inhibitor, for the treatment of patients with advanced GIST who have received prior treatment with imatinib, sunitinib and regorafenib (Press release, Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, DEC 16, 2019, View Source [SID1234552382]).

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"The NDA submission for ripretinib marks an exciting milestone as we work towards delivering a potential new treatment option for people with advanced GIST," said Steve Hoerter, President and Chief Executive Officer of Deciphera. "We look forward to working with the FDA through their review of our application, and we remain focused on preparing for the potential launch of ripretinib in the United States, if approved."

The NDA is being reviewed by the FDA under the Oncology Center of Excellence Real-Time Oncology Review, or RTOR, pilot program. The pilot program aims to explore a more efficient review process to ensure that safe and effective treatments are available to patients as early as possible, while maintaining and improving review quality. Additional information about RTOR can be found at: View Source

In October 2019, FDA granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation (BTD) for ripretinib for the treatment of patients with advanced GIST who have received prior treatment with imatinib, sunitinib and regorafenib. BTD is designed to expedite the development and review of drugs that are intended to treat a serious condition and preliminary clinical evidence indicates that the drug may demonstrate substantial improvement over available therapy.

The NDA submission is supported by positive data from the Company’s INVICTUS pivotal Phase 3 study of ripretinib in advanced GIST. INVICTUS is a randomized (2:1), double-blind, placebo-controlled, international, multicenter study designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of ripretinib compared to placebo in 129 patients with advanced GIST whose previous therapies have included at least imatinib, sunitinib, and regorafenib. As previously reported, the study achieved the primary endpoint of improved progression free survival compared to placebo in patients with fourth-line and fourth-line plus GIST, as determined by blinded independent central radiologic review using modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) version 1.1.

About Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor

Gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) is a cancer affecting the digestive tract or nearby structures within the abdomen, most often presenting in the stomach or small intestine. GIST is the most common sarcoma of the gastrointestinal tract, with approximately 4,000 to 6,000 new GIST cases each year in the United States and a similar incidence rate in European and other countries. Most cases of GIST are driven by a spectrum of mutations. The most common primary mutations are in KIT kinase, representing approximately 75% to 80% of cases, and PDGFRα kinase, representing approximately 5% to 10% of cases. Current therapies are unable to inhibit the full spectrum of primary and secondary mutations, which drives resistance and disease progression. Estimates for 5-year survival range from 48% to 90%, depending on the stage of the disease at diagnosis.

About Ripretinib

Ripretinib is an investigational tyrosine kinase switch control inhibitor that was engineered to broadly inhibit KIT and PDGFRα mutated kinases by using a unique dual mechanism of action that regulates the kinase switch pocket and activation loop. Ripretinib is currently in clinical development for the treatment of KIT and/or PDGFRα-driven cancers, including gastrointestinal stromal tumors, or GIST, systemic mastocytosis, or SM, and other cancers. Ripretinib inhibits initiating and secondary KIT mutations in exons 9, 11, 13, 14, 17, and 18, involved in GIST, as well as the primary exon 17 D816V mutation involved in SM. Ripretinib also inhibits primary PDGFRα mutations in exons 12, 14 and 18, including the exon 18 D842V mutation, involved in a subset of GIST. Ripretinib has been granted Fast Track Designation and Breakthrough Therapy Designation by the U.S. FDA for the treatment of patients with advanced GIST who have received prior treatment with imatinib, sunitinib and regorafenib. Ripretinib has also been granted Orphan Drug Designation for the treatment of GIST by the U.S. FDA and European Medicines Agency (EMA). For more information about the Company’s clinical trials with ripretinib, please visit www.clinicaltrials.gov.

Deciphera Pharmaceuticals has an exclusive license agreement with Zai Lab (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. for the development and commercialization of ripretinib in Greater China (MainlandChina, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan). Deciphera Pharmaceuticals retains development and commercial rights for ripretinib in the rest of the world.