On December 20, 2023 Akoya Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: AKYA) ("Akoya"), The Spatial Biology Company, reported that it will be participating in the 42nd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference (Press release, Akoya Biosciences, DEC 20, 2023, View Source [SID1234638726]).

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!

Brian McKelligon, CEO, is scheduled to present on Wednesday, January 10th, 2024 at 3:45 p.m. PT.

A live and archived webcast of the event will be available on the "Investors" section of the Akoya website at View Source

On December 19, 2023 XOMA Corporation (Nasdaq: XOMA), the biotech royalty aggregator, reported that it has entered into a non-dilutive, non-recourse, royalty-backed loan for up to $140 million of capital with certain funds managed by the credit platform of Blue Owl Capital Inc. (NYSE: OWL) (Press release, Xoma, DEC 19, 2023, View Source [SID1234638689]).

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!

"The Blue Owl financing provides us with significant non-dilutive capital to drive shareholder value through stock repurchases and additional royalty and milestone acquisitions," stated Brad Sitko, Chief Investment Officer of XOMA. "This capital infusion comes at an opportune time given the existing state of the biotech funding market, providing us with an opportunity to accelerate the growth of our royalty and milestones portfolio, which currently consists of two marketed products, two programs in or near registration, five assets in Phase 3 development, and over 60 assets in earlier stages of development."

"Blue Owl’s Life Science efforts are focused on credit, royalty, and equity investments in innovative healthcare and life sciences companies and products. We recognize the value embedded in XOMA’s differentiated royalty and milestone aggregation business strategy. Our long-established relationship with XOMA’s management team gives us confidence that they can continue building a balanced portfolio of current and future royalty-generating assets. This financing establishes a long-term partnership with XOMA, as we help broaden their access to capital for royalty and milestone monetization opportunities," said Sandip Agarwala, Managing Director at Blue Owl Capital.

Terms of the Agreement

XOMA has drawn down $130 million in principal from Blue Owl and has the option to draw another $10 million should the royalties received from VABYSMO (faricimab) sales on or prior to March 15, 2026, exceed a predetermined amount. XOMA is obligated to make semi-annual interest payments at a fixed rate of 9.875% per year until the royalty-backed loan is repaid, at which time VABYSMO royalty payments will revert back to XOMA. The loan is repayable over a 15-year period, although XOMA may repay it in full at any time during that period, subject to the terms of the loan. Additionally, XOMA has issued to Blue

Owl warrants to purchase an aggregate of up to 120,000 shares of XOMA’s common stock in three equal tranches with strike prices of $35.00, $42.50, and $50.00 per share, respectively, resulting in implied premiums of 122%, 170%, and 217% to the price of XOMA’s common stock at closing, respectively.

Advisors

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP served as XOMA’s legal advisor while Blue Owl was advised by Cooley LLP.

On December 19, 2023 Medigene AG (Medigene or the "Company", FSE: MDG1, Prime Standard), an immuno-oncology platform company focusing on the discovery and development of T cell immunotherapies for solid tumors, reported that it will be attending the 42nd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco to be held from January 8-11, 2024 (Press release, MediGene, DEC 19, 2023, View Source [SID1234638690]).

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!

J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference
View Source
Date: January 8-11, 2024
Location: The Westin St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco, CA

Members of Medigene’s management team will be available for one-on-one meetings to showcase the Company’s unique scientific platform, product pipeline, execution of its corporate strategy, and 2024 plans. Please contact Pamela Keck at [email protected] to schedule a meeting.

On December 19, 2023 Innate Pharma SA (Euronext Paris: IPH; Nasdaq: IPHA) and Sanofi (NASDAQ: SNY) reported that Sanofi has exercised its option to license a natural killer (NK) cell engager program in solid tumors from Innate’s ANKET (Antibody-based NK Cell Engager Therapeutics) platform pursuant to the terms of the research collaboration and license agreement signed in December 2022 (Press release, Innate Pharma, DEC 19, 2023, View Source [SID1234638707]). Following a research collaboration period, Sanofi will be responsible for all development, manufacturing and commercialization. Sanofi still retains the option to one additional ANKET target as per the license agreement.

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!

Eric Vivier, Ph.D., DVM, PhD, Senior Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer of Innate Pharma, said: "We have been collaborating with Sanofi since 2016 and together we have made significant progress in advancing multi-specific NK Cell Engagers for the treatment of various cancers with two programs now in the clinic. Building on our partnership with Sanofi, the exercise of this option is another important milestone as we continue to grow our ANKET platform."

Under the terms of the December 2022 agreement, Innate will receive a €15m payment for the exercise of this option. Innate Pharma is eligible for up to €1.35bn total in preclinical, clinical, regulatory and commercial milestones plus royalties on potential net sales.

Valeria Fantin, Ph.D., Global Head of Oncology Research at Sanofi, states: "Sanofi is pleased with our collaboration with Innate and continues to be excited at the potential of investigational NK Cell Engagers. The emerging results we have seen show promise at the possibility of offering options to patients who have limited treatments available to them."

About ANKET

ANKET (Antibody-based NK cell Engager Therapeutics) is Innate’s proprietary platform for developing next-generation, multi-specific natural killer (NK) cell engagers to treat certain types of cancer.

This versatile, fit-for-purpose technology is creating an entirely new class of molecules to induce synthetic immunity against cancer.

About the Innate-Sanofi research collaboration and license agreements

The Company has a research collaboration and license agreement with Sanofi to apply Innate’s proprietary technology to the development of innovative multi-specific antibody formats engaging NK cells through the activating receptors NKp46 and CD16 to kill tumor cells.

Under the 2016 research collaboration and license agreement, Sanofi is responsible for the development, manufacturing and commercialization of products resulting from the research collaboration, IPH6101/SAR’579 (Trifunctional anti-CD123 NKp46xCD16 NK cell engager) and IPH6401/SAR’514 (Trifunctional anti-BCMA NKp46xCD16 NK cell engager). Innate Pharma is eligible to up to €400m in development and commercial milestone payments as well as royalties on net sales.

As part of the license agreement entered in December 2022, Sanofi licensed IPH62 (B7-H3) and one undisclosed ANKET programs and has the option for one additional target. Under the terms of the 2022 agreement, Innate Pharma is eligible to up to €1.35bn total in preclinical, clinical, regulatory and commercial milestones plus royalties on potential net sales.

On December 19, 2023 – Atavistik Bio, a biotechnology company discovering the next generation of precision allosteric therapeutics inspired by the body’s natural regulators, reported that it has raised an additional $40 million to advance its lead precision allosteric small molecule therapeutic in oncology into the clinic and to advance its earlier stage pipeline (Press release, Atavistik Bio, DEC 19, 2023, View Source [SID1234647393]). The financing included existing investors, including The Column Group, Lux Capital, and Nextech Invest, Ltd. Atavistik Bio has raised $100 million in aggregate since its launch in August 2021.

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!

"We’ve made tremendous progress identifying functional pockets of validated targets and have accelerated the development of precision allosteric therapeutics. Key to our success has been our outstanding team with the know-how and proven track record of discovering and developing transformative medicines," said Bryan Stuart, Chief Executive Officer at Atavistik Bio. "We’re grateful to our investors for their continued support of our mission. We look forward to using the proceeds from this raise to advance our lead program into the clinic and progress our additional programs and platform."

"Allostery continues to gain traction given its potential to modulate intractable targets and to offer better tolerated, more effective therapies for current sub-optimally treated diseases," said John Josey, Ph.D., Venture Partner at The Column Group and Atavistik Bio’s Board Chair. "In a short period of time, Atavistik Bio has quickly identified novel allosteric binding pockets in a broad range of targets and built a deep discovery pipeline. We believe that Atavistik Bio’s differentiated approach to identify chemical matter against challenging and valuable targets presents a compelling opportunity to bring important new, allosteric medicines to patients across a broad spectrum of disease areas."

Atavistik Bio seamlessly integrates its proprietary Atavistik Metabolite-Protein Screening (AMPS) technology with its AI-enabled discovery engine to rapidly advance programs from discovery into development. AMPS efficiently uncovers cryptic functional pockets not detectable with other techniques. It accomplishes this by leveraging metabolites, which are natural regulators of protein and RNA function in the body, as ‘bait’ to reveal otherwise hidden allosteric binding pockets on target proteins and functional sites on RNA. Atavistik Bio then applies its state-of-the-art, proprietary AI-enabled drug discovery engine to discover and design small molecules, enabling the rapid advancement of allosteric precision therapeutics.

Employing this integrated approach, Atavistik Bio has successfully and rapidly identified functional binding pockets for the development of small molecule therapeutics across a broad range of target classes, including kinases, enzymes, receptors, transcription factors, as well as protein complexes and RNA, and translated these insights into a robust discovery pipeline. The company’s internal efforts are focused on oncology and rare diseases. It intends to leverage partnerships to extend the reach of its platform to other therapeutic areas, including metabolic and cardiovascular disease, inflammation and immunology disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases.