On September 11, 2024 Radiant Biotherapeutics, a preclinical biotechnology company developing an antibody platform to deliver transformative therapies for patients facing life-changing disease, reported it has closed a $35 million Series A financing (Press release, Radiant Biotherapeutics, SEP 11, 2024, View Source [SID1234646524]). The round is co-led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Amplitude Ventures of Canada.

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!

Additional participants in the Series A include new investors BDC Capital, the investment arm of the Business Development Bank of Canada, through its Thrive Venture Fund, and abrdn, an investment fund managed by abrdn Inc.; and existing investors FACIT, Alexandria Venture Investments and Toronto Innovation Acceleration Partners (TIAP).

Radiant has built a best-in-class, proprietary, multi-valent, multi-specific antibody platform called Multabody. The funds will enable Radiant to further develop the company’s lead clinical candidate, 4-1BB, and move it towards clinical trials.

"These supportive investors share our vision of delivering powerful, multi-functional biologics with the potential to advance treatments for patients suffering from debilitating and life-threatening illnesses," said Arthur J. Fratamico, President and CEO of Radiant. "This investment enables us to further demonstrate the unique power and breadth of our platform across multiple therapeutic areas with a focus in oncology, inflammation and immunology, and global health and infectious disease including HIV."

Multabody therapeutics are able to overcome the shortcomings of existing antibody approaches by leveraging remarkable avidity, or binding strength, on their intended targets. Multabodies also exploit multi-specificity, enabling targeting of different disease-modifying proteins as well as multiple epitopes on the same target. Together, these qualities give Multabody therapeutics exceptional potency against both solid tumors and blood cancers, infectious disease pathogens, and other targets in multiple therapeutic areas.

"This financing will enable the next stage in Radiant’s growth and move the company towards the clinic as it continues to demonstrate the superiority of the Multabody platform against therapeutic targets that cannot be treated with traditional antibodies," said Bharat Srinivasa, Ph.D., principal at Amplitude Ventures. "We are investing to accelerate Radiant’s transition to clinical stage and to expand its pipeline in additional therapeutic areas."

Radiant Biotherapeutics was founded in 2020 and is built around foundational science developed at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto and the University of Toronto, based on and including work performed at the laboratories of Jean-Philippe Julien, Ph.D., senior scientist at SickKids and associate professor at University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, and Bebhinn Treanor, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Toronto. The company emerged from stealth mode in 2023 following a seed investment led by Amplitude Ventures, FACIT, TIAP and Alexandria Venture Investments. Radiant maintains offices in Toronto and Philadelphia.

On September 10, 2024 Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRVS), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, reported that it has initiated a registrational Phase 3 clinical trial of soquelitinib for patients with relapsed/refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) (Press release, Corvus Pharmaceuticals, SEP 10, 2024, View Source [SID1234646469]). The clinical trial is a randomized, controlled study that will evaluate the efficacy and safety of soquelitinib compared to standard of care chemotherapy.

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 initiation of the soquelitinib Phase 3 trial for relapsed PTCL is an important milestone for Corvus and for patients suffering with this disease," said Richard A. Miller, M.D., co-founder, president and chief executive officer of Corvus. "Soquelitinib has a unique mechanism of action based on selective ITK inhibition, which we believe has potential for the treatment of T cell lymphomas, as well as for solid tumors and a broad range of immune diseases."

The clinical trial (NCT06561048) is designed to enroll approximately 150 patients with relapsed/refractory PTCL who have failed one to three prior lines of therapy. Patients will be randomized in a 1:1 ratio to receive either 200mg dose of soquelitinib two-times a day or standard of care chemotherapy with either belinostat or pralatrexate. The primary endpoint of the clinical trial is progression-free survival and secondary endpoints include overall survival, objective response rate, and duration of response. The trial is expected to enroll patients at approximately 40 sites in the United States, Canada, Australia and South Korea.

"We are excited to participate in this Phase 3 trial evaluating a new therapy for patients with relapsed/refractory PTCL," said Swaminathan P. Iyer, M.D., principal investigator of the study and Professor in the Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. "In earlier stage trials, soquelitinib has been well-tolerated and has demonstrated durable anti-tumor activity in patients with very advanced disease. Soquelitinib’s novel mechanism of action results in enhancement of the host anti-tumor response. In general, chemotherapy drugs have not produced lasting remissions and are sometimes associated with significant toxicity. There has been a scarcity of new ideas for the treatment of PTCL and we are eager to see if soquelitinib can offer these patients a more effective and safer treatment."

On September 10, 2024 Pillar Biosciences, Inc. reported that it has entered into a strategic partnership with AstraZeneca to expand laboratory access to molecular testing, using rapid, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS)-based liquid biopsy tumor profiling panels for detection of genetic cancer variants, with an initial focus on European markets and the UK (Press release, Pillar Biosciences, SEP 10, 2024, View Source [SID1234646485]).

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 partnership aims to rapidly identify tumors with clinically actionable genomic alterations via liquid biopsy profiling and intends to support faster diagnostic testing by increasing the local availability of plasma-based tumor profiling at leading clinical laboratories.

The work will initially leverage Pillar Biosciences oncoRevealTM Core LBx, Essential LBx, and Fusion LBx research-use-only (RUO) liquid biopsy kitted NGS panels. Pillar’s oncoRevealTM Core LBx panel, which interrogates 104 genes in circulating cell-free tumor DNA (cfDNA), oncoRevealTM Essential LBx panel, which interrogates 34 genes in cfDNA,and oncoRevealTM Fusion LBx, which interrogates various fusion forms from 18 driver genes via circulating cell-free tumor RNA (cfRNA), can be performed by any laboratory, with a sample-to-report time in less than three days. Laboratories will be able to batch test both cfDNA and cfRNA samples from >22 patients on a single Illumina NextSeq run, enabling economic value and scale of sequencing needed to properly profile at extremely high levels of sensitivity and specificity.

"Access to cost effective, easy to use, distributed NGS kits for liquid biopsy testing are critical to support local laboratories in providing clinically actionable results to oncologists and supporting critical treatment decisions for cancer patients globally," said Dan Harma, Chief Commercial Officer, Pillar Biosciences. "Pillar Biosciences LBx panels, including oncoRevealTM Core LBx, oncoReveal EssentialTM LBx and oncoRevealTM Fusion LBx will help provide in-house results locally within a few days vs. several weeks to receive results from sending out their patient samples for most clinical laboratories."

"We are committed to expanding global patient access to biomarker testing, and decentralized NGS solutions are key to this strategy," said John Longshore, Head of Scientific Affairs, Global Oncology Diagnostics, AstraZeneca. "These kit-based methods allow a broad range of laboratories to perform high-quality NGS testing, which improves patient access to targeted therapies. Pillar Biosciences sequencing panels provide rapid, simplified NGS workflows and bioinformatics, which are ideal to supporting our global efforts."

On September 10, 2024 ICE Bioscience and NanoTemper Technologies reported an exciting new partnership to establish a Biophysical Joint Innovation Platform (Press release, ICE Bioscience, SEP 10, 2024, View Source;catname=icenews [SID1234647432]). The signing and unveiling ceremony took place at ICE Bioscience’s headquarters in Beijing, with senior leadership from both companies in attendance, including Dr. TJ Bing, Senior Vice President of ICE Bioscience, Dr. Qiang Xia, Vice President of ICE Bioscience, and Barrett Lee, NanoTemper’s Head of APAC Commercial.

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!

Dr. Bing and Mr. Lee officially signed the cooperation agreement and jointly unveiled the new platform, marking the beginning of an innovative collaboration aimed at advancing biophysics research and applications in drug discovery.

During the event, Dr. Bing welcomed the NanoTemper team and emphasized ICE Bioscience’s commitment to innovation and technology in drug discovery. He highlighted the company’s significant investment in R&D and the strategic alignment of NanoTemper’s Spectral Shift technology with ICE’s goals of exploring new targets, new technologies, and new assays.

Barrett Lee expressed NanoTemper’s appreciation for ICE Bioscience’s trust and enthusiasm for bringing cutting-edge technologies to global researchers. He shared his confidence that this partnership would support ICE Bioscience in becoming a leader in binding affinities and protein stability services, providing essential tools for high-throughput screening.

Following the unveiling, ICE Vice President Xia Qiang led the NanoTemper representatives on a tour of the newly established innovation platform, showcasing the company’s advancements in biophysical assays and outlining future objectives for the platform.

On September 10, 2024 Curium, a world leader in nuclear medicine, reported that in Spain, PYLCLARI is now available for patients with prostate cancer (Press release, Curium Pharma, SEP 10, 2024, View Source [SID1234646470]). PYLCLARI (INN: Piflufolastat (18F) also known as (18F)-DCFPyL) is indicated for the detection of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) positive lesions with positron emission tomography (PET) in patients with prostate cancer in the following clinical settings:

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!

Primary staging of patients with high-risk prostate cancer prior to initial curative therapy
To localize recurrence of prostate cancer in patients with a suspected recurrence based on increasing serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels after primary treatment with curative intent
Benoit Woessmer, PET Europe CEO at Curium commented, "The availability of PYLCLARI in Spain is an important milestone for patients with prostate cancer and underscores our dedication to improving the choice of diagnostic PET radiopharmaceuticals. As we continue to redefine the experience of cancer through our trusted legacy in nuclear medicine, we are proud that the availability of PYLCLARI continues to grow and now covers seven countries including Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain."

In Spain, prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers among men with around 30,000 new cases diagnosed nationwide every year. PYLCLARI is being produced by Curium at two sites in Madrid and one site in Sevilla, ensuring timely and efficient distribution across the country.