On October 7, 2021 Caris Life Sciences, a molecular science company developing and delivering technologies to revolutionize healthcare, and ESSA Pharma Inc. (Nasdaq: EPIX) ("ESSA"), a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company focused on developing novel therapies for the treatment of prostate cancer, reported a Precision Development program to support ESSA’s ongoing clinical development of EPI-7386, a first-in-class N-terminal domain androgen receptor inhibitor, in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer ("mCRPC") failing current standard-of-care therapies (Press release, Caris Life Sciences, OCT 7, 2021, View Source [SID1234590965]).

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Under the terms of the agreement, Caris and ESSA will evaluate patient blood samples to assess genetic profiles utilizing Caris’ Whole Transcriptome Sequencing (WTS) and Whole Exome Sequencing (WES) platform. ESSA will utilize these liquid biopsies, including longitudinal data from serial samples, to better characterize the tumor biological profiles of patients in the ongoing monotherapy clinical trial of EPI-7386 in mCRPC patients.

"We are delighted to establish this collaboration with Caris," said Dr. David. R. Parkinson, Chief Executive Officer, ESSA Pharma Inc. "We believe the unique biological platform provided by Caris’ comprehensive WTS and WES profiling will provide important information at the individual patient level through a convenient blood-based test. This information may facilitate a more efficient development of EPI-7386 in patients with prostate cancer through the identification of relevant patient tumor biological subpopulations."

"We are excited to partner with ESSA to expand the reach of Caris’ best-in-class liquid biopsy offering, assessing all 22,000 genes in both DNA and RNA, which are unique to an individual’s cancer," said Brian Lamon, Chief Business Officer at Caris Life Sciences. "Precision partnering means tailoring our capabilities to the needs of our partners to maximize the potential success for their therapeutic programs – and achieving our shared goal of delivering more precise therapeutic options to patients."

On October 7, 2021 Phio Pharmaceuticals Corp. (Nasdaq: PHIO), a biotechnology company developing the next generation of immuno-oncology therapeutics based on its proprietary self-delivering RNAi (INTASYL) therapeutic platform, reported that new data with PH-894, Phio’s self-delivering RNAi compound targeting the bromodomain-containing protein 4 (BRD4) at the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper)-NCI-EORTC Virtual AACR-NCI-EORTC (Free AACR-NCI-EORTC Whitepaper) International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics (EORTC-NCI-AACR) (Free ASGCT Whitepaper) (Free EORTC-NCI-AACR Whitepaper) (Press release, Phio Pharmaceuticals, OCT 7, 2021, View Source [SID1234590927]). The data presented add to the growing body of evidence that BRD4 not only plays a role in tumor cells, but can also regulate T cell function and that PH-894 can reprogram T cells to provide enhanced immunotherapeutic activity.

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"The data we presented today at the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper)-NCI-EORTC meeting demonstrates silencing BRD4 with our INTASYL compound PH-894 has a significant impact on T cell function and phenotype promoting T cell activation and immunosuppression in the tumor microenvironment," said Simon Fricker, Phio’s Vice President of R&D. "Our new data shows how BRD4 can regulate immune cells activity and therefore BRD4 silencing with PH-894 could become an important approach to treat cancer."

In this study conducted in collaboration with the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, it was shown that PH-894 resulted in a strong, concentration dependent and durable silencing of BRD4 in T cells, which in an in vivo study translated to pronounced and dose associated inhibition of tumor growth. These data demonstrate that Phio’s PH-894 INTASYL compound can reprogram T cells to provide enhanced immunotherapeutic activity.

"We are very excited by these data, which suggest that PH-894’s potency is not solely a consequence of its direct effect on tumor cells, but also its ability to reprogram and activate T cells to further boost the anti-cancer effect. As such, we are working hard on IND-enabling studies to bring this promising compound to the clinic," continued Dr. Fricker.

Phio’s presentation detailing the data presented at the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper)-NCI-EORTC Virtual AACR-NCI-EORTC (Free AACR-NCI-EORTC Whitepaper) International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics (EORTC-NCI-AACR) (Free ASGCT Whitepaper) (Free EORTC-NCI-AACR Whitepaper) titled, "Targeting BRD4 in T cells with self-delivering RNAi PH-894 for immunotherapy" will be made available on the "Investors – Events and Presentations" section of the Company’s website (click here).

On October 7, 2021 Sapreme, a biotechnology company focused on improving the delivery and efficacy of macromolecule therapeutics, reported that it has closed a EUR 15 million Series A financing round to accelerate the buildout of its endosomal escape technology platform and support the further progress of its proprietary pipeline and corporate development activities (Press release, Sapreme Technologies, OCT 7, 2021, View Source [SID1234590943]). Led by founding investor Aglaia Oncology Funds, together with Aglaia-associated partners, the round follows promising 2020 and 2021 preclinical data demonstrating the effectiveness of Sapreme’s endosomal escape compound, SPT001.

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Sapreme was founded in 2016 to develop improved macromolecular therapeutics such as antibody targeted antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) for the treatment of cancer and other indications. Sapreme’s innovative endosomal escape platform is designed to allow therapeutics to reach their target without becoming entrapped by the endosome. Endosomal entrapment poses a significant hurdle for the drug discovery and development industry, currently limiting the development of a broad range of potential macromolecular therapeutics to ‘undruggable’ intracellular targets. An effective solution to endosomal entrapment could be of immense value to the therapeutic landscape, as it enables the development of truly differentiated therapeutics to such novel targets.

"The continued support of Aglaia and its backers is invaluable to us as we continue to showcase the potential of our platform and establish our proprietary therapeutics pipeline," stated Guy Hermans, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Sapreme. "These proceeds will allow us to mature our platform and to generate preclinical data needed to showcase the full scope of our technology."

In addition to earlier data supporting the use of its platform in oncology and in combination with various drug modalities, the company recently unveiled new in vivo data demonstrating its ability to significantly enhance delivery of oligonucleotides to the liver using GalNAc targeting – currently a mainstay in the therapeutic oligo development field. The data revealed consistent high levels of gene expression knockdown in the liver at reduced oligonucleotide doses.

"Having engaged in multiple studies with industry players throughout the past year, we see the opportunity to expand these collaborations to a range of new indications and drug modalities in the months ahead. Our current collaborators apply Sapreme’s endosomal escape technology to their proprietary drug candidates to improve intracellular target engagement manyfold, such as we have reported on earlier. We now look forward to further scale the platform and advancing our internal drug development pipeline, which following the Series A, we are well-positioned to do," commented Henrik Luessen, Chief Business Officer of Sapreme. (Press release, Sapreme Technologies, OCT 7, 2021, View Source [SID1234590943])

On October 7, 2021 Hansa Biopharma AB (Nasdaq Stockholm: HNSA) reported that it will publish its interim report for January-September 2021 at 8:00 CET on October 21, 2021 (Press release, Hansa Biopharma, OCT 7, 2021, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hansa-biopharma-to-host-conference-call-to-provide-interim-results-for-january-september-2021-and-business-update-301394906.html [SID1234590966]). All interested parties are invited to participate in a telephone conference, which will include a presentation of the interim results and a business update, on the same date at 14:00 CET/8:00am EST. The event will be hosted by Hansa Biopharma’s CEO, Søren Tulstrup, and CFO, Donato Spota, and the presentation will be held in English.

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Slides used in the presentation will be live on the company website during the call under "Events & Webcast," and will also be made available online after the call. Link to presentation

On October 7, 2021 Kineta, Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on the development of novel immunotherapies in oncology, reported the presentation of preclinical data on the company’s new immuno-oncology program targeting CD27 at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) Virtual Conference on Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy (Press release, Kineta, OCT 7, 2021, View Source;utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kineta-presents-preclinical-data-on-its-new-cd27-program-at-the-aacr-conference-on-tumor-immunology-and-immunotherapy [SID1234590928]). Thierry Guillaudeux, PhD, Senior Vice President Immuno-oncology at Kineta, presented a poster detailing new preclinical data on the company’s lead anti-CD27 agonist antibodies.

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CD27 is a member of the TNF receptor superfamily and plays a critical role in T-cell activation by providing a co-stimulatory signal together with its ligand CD70. CD27 is highly expressed on naïve T cells and also provides a co-stimulatory signal for NK cell activation. A major challenge in cancer immunotherapy is T cell "exhaustion". Anti-cancer T cells, through repeated stimulation, begin to lose their cancer-fighting effector functions. Once a T cell is exhausted, further stimulation becomes ineffective. CD27 agonist immunotherapy may reprogram the immune system to generate new and more diverse populations of anticancer "memory" T cells from naïve T cells to elicit a strong anti-tumor response.

"This is a significant milestone for Kineta as we expand our pipeline with another exciting immuno-oncology antibody program," said Shawn Iadonato, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of Kineta. "Our immuno-oncology strategy is to develop differentiated immunotherapies to address key mechanisms of cancer resistance including immunosuppression, exhausted T cells, and lack of tumor antigens. CD27 is a promising immunotherapy target to address exhausted T cells and restore anti-tumor T cell function".

Key results from the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) poster presentation include the following:

147 fully human monoclonal anti-CD27 antibodies with unique sequences were generated
Kineta’s anti-CD27 antibodies are highly specific and cross-react with cyno-CD27
Anti-CD27 agonist assay showed particularly strong induction for eight of the anti-CD27 antibodies
Human peripheral blood T cell activation assay showed increased proliferation and cytokine secretion
"We are encouraged with the results of our anti-CD27 antibodies as they performed exceedingly well across multiple preclinical experiments", said Thierry Guillaudeux, PhD, SVP Immuno-oncology at Kineta. "We are currently in lead selection and will nominate a clinical candidate to advance into IND-enabling studies in 2022."

Presentation Details:

Title: A promising cancer immunotherapy target: Novel fully human agonist antibodies against the human T-cell costimulatory receptor CD27
Date Presented: October 5-6, 2021
Presenter: Thierry Guillaudeux, PhD
Poster: Click on the link below to view the poster:
Kineta CD27 Poster Presentation at AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) Conference on Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy