On April 1, 2021 ImmunityBio, Inc. (NASDAQ: IBRX), a clinical-stage immunotherapy company, reported the appointment of health innovation expert and executive Linda Maxwell, M.D., MBA, as an independent member of the company’s board of directors (Press release, NantKwest, APR 1, 2021, View Source [SID1234577493]). The company also appointed CEO Richard Adcock to the board; he was named CEO of NantKwest in October and remains the CEO of the company after the merger of NantKwest with ImmunityBio in March. Both appointments are effective March 29, 2021.

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The nine-member ImmunityBio board is led by Founder and Executive Chairman Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D. The board includes two other recently appointed outside members, former CIA director John Brennan and retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, along with current board members Michael Blaszyk, Cheryl Cohen, Christobel Selecky, and Barry Simon, M.D.

"Linda’s background as a physician and surgeon combined with her extensive global healthcare industry and business experience will enable us to build on ImmunityBio’s strong foundation and help us take the company to the next level," said Soon-Shiong. "As a company working to bring novel therapeutic approaches to treating cancer and other serious conditions, we will benefit greatly from Linda’s insights on innovation."

The company also announced that two current directors—Fred Driscoll and John D. Thomas—will conclude their service on the board effective with the new appointments.

"We are grateful to Fred and John for their many years of service and the value they brought to our shareholders and employees," said Soon-Shiong. "During their tenure, we have expanded our pipeline and grown our portfolio of immunotherapy agents. Their contributions during that time were important to establishing this strong foundation and baseline for the growth we anticipate."

About Dr. Linda Maxwell

Dr. Maxwell is a medical educator, surgeon, and health technology entrepreneur and innovator. She has guided a wide variety of startup companies through clinical development capitalization and commercialization as Founder and Executive Director of the Biomedical Zone, Canada’s first and only hospital-embedded, physician-led business incubator for emerging health technology companies. Dr. Maxwell also managed a life sciences tech transfer portfolio at the University of Oxford and the UK national Health Service, executing patent strategy, spin-out company formation, and early stage capital raising. She has also served as a healthcare innovation expert in various Canadian federal, provincial, and local government entities, as a member of the Department Audit Committee and the Public Health Agency of Canada, as an advisor to the Canadian Medial Association and the Canadian Space Agency. Dr. Maxwell earned an A.B. with honors from Harvard University, an M.D. from Yale University and an M.B.A. from the University of Oxford. She serves as an independent member of the Board of Directors of United Therapeutics, Inc.

"I’m honored to join the ImmunityBio board at such an important time of growth and opportunity for the company," she said. "I’m impressed with both the science and the leadership that I believe will take the company on an upward trajectory as it makes innovative contributions to medicine."

On April 1, 2021 McKesson Corporation (NYSE: MCK) reported that it will release its fourth quarter fiscal 2021 financial results after market close on Thursday, May 6, 2021 (Press release, McKesson, APR 1, 2021, View Source [SID1234577509]). The company will host a live webcast of the earnings conference call for investors at 4:30 PM Eastern Time to review its financial results.

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The live webcast will be available on McKesson’s Investor Relations website at View Source, along with the company’s earnings press release, financial tables and slide presentation.

On April 1, 2021 KAHR, a cancer immunotherapy company developing novel multifunctional immuno-recruitment proteins, reported that it has entered into a licensing agreement with Thomas Jefferson University — a national doctoral research university — and its clinical enterprise, Jefferson Health, located in Philadelphia, PA (Press release, KAHR Medical, APR 1, 2021, View Source;and-tri-specific-fusion-proteins-for-cancer-immunotherapy-301260406.html [SID1234577526]). Under the agreement, Thomas Jefferson University is granting KAHR an exclusive license to develop and commercialize multiple new drug candidates including DSP502, a TIGITxPD1 fusion protein, and DSP216, a LILRB2xSIRPa fusion protein for immuno-oncology.

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"With this agreement we are adding a second fusion protein platform to our portfolio, enabling us to broaden our immuno-oncology target pipeline and positioning KAHR as a world leader in the fusion protein space," said Yaron Pereg, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of KAHR. "Both DSP502 and DSP216 focus on promising checkpoint pathways, unleashing the potential of innate and adaptive immune cells and enhancing anti-tumor immunoactivity through dual checkpoint inhibition. These products are differentiated from current drug candidates targeting the same pathways as they target the ligands, not the receptors, thus increasing tumor selectivity by dual binding and avoiding potential redundancy compensation by other receptors of the same ligands."

"Expanding our collaboration with the outstanding team at KAHR provides the opportunity to expand this new platform into novel targets and to unleash the activity of other immune cell types of the innate and adaptive immune systems," said Mark Tykocinski, MD, Provost of Thomas Jefferson University and Dean of its Sidney Kimmel Medical College.

"The synergy between Dr. Tykocinski’s innovative work on activation of anti-cancer immunity using multifunctional recombinant proteins and KAHR’s dedication to the development of cutting-edge immuno-recruitment cancer drugs is the next step to accelerate the translation of this technology to the clinic," said Dr. Heather Rose, Jefferson’s Innovation Vice President, who led the negotiations. "KAHR is a perfect partner for Jefferson to advance this compelling and important work," added Dr. Rose Ritts, Jefferson’s Innovation Executive Vice President, who oversees out-licensing of Jefferson-owned intellectual property.

KAHR’s current technology is based on multi-functional immuno-recruitment proteins (MIRP) that take advantage of the overexpression of checkpoint antigens on cancer cells in order to selectively target the tumor. Its lead asset, DSP107, is a bi-functional fusion protein that targets CD47 and 4-1BB. It triggers a local, synergistic immune response by binding both CD47, over-expressed on cancer cells, thereby disabling its "don’t eat me" signal, and 4-1BB receptors expressed on activated, tumor-reactive T-cells, stimulating their proliferation and activation. The trimeric structure of DSP107 and its binding to CD47 enables cross-presentation of 4-1BBL for conditional, tumor-localized 4-1BB receptor activation on tumor reactive T-cells.

DSP107 is currently being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 multicenter, open-label, dose-escalation and expansion study (NCT04440735). The study is evaluating the safety, pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD) of DSP107 as a monotherapy and in combination with Roche’s PD-L1-blocking checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab (Tecentriq) in patients with advanced solid tumors.

On March 31, 2021 Complix, a biopharmaceutical company developing a pipeline of transformative Alphabody therapeutics reported the publication in Science Advances of the results from a joint, multidisciplinary study with Belgian life sciences research Institute VIB and Ghent University (Press release, Complix, MAR 31, 2021, View Source;utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=complix-and-vib-publish-pioneering-study-on-cell-penetrating-alphabodies-in-science-advances [SID1234577405]). The proof-of-concept study demonstrates the potential of Cell-Penetrating Alphabodies (CPABs) to efficiently penetrate the cancer cell membrane, disrupt an intracellular protein-protein interface, and cause an anti-tumor effect upon in vivo administration in relevant xenograft models.

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The article by Pannecoucke et al. can be accessed by clicking here.

CPABs are a revolutionary class of small proteins that have been designed to overcome the limitations of conventional antibodies and small molecules through combining the specific potency of biologics with the cell-penetrating capacity and stability of small molecules. Data available show that CPABs have the potential to address a wide range of disease targets, particularly intracellular targets, that are difficult for current therapies to reach.

The study, published in Science Advances, demonstrates that CPABs can be designed to efficiently penetrate the cell membrane, disrupt an intracellular protein-protein interface, and carry an albumin-binding moiety to extend their serum half-life to therapeutically relevant levels. The unique combination of these three features in a single protein scaffold is without precedent. In this publication a CPAB was engineered against MCL-1, an intracellular protein target in cancer.

The findings from this study provide strong proof of concept for the use of CPABs against intracellular disease mediators, which, to date, have remained in the realm of small-molecule therapeutics.

Dr. Ignace Lasters, CTO of Complix, commented:
"We are pleased to see the publication of this important study, which is a clear validation of our platform and highlights the potential of CPABs to directly address intracellular drug targets in oncology. Reaching the intracellular space has been a critical limiting factor in broadening the therapeutic potential of current biologicals such as monoclonal antibodies. This proof-of-concept study clearly demonstrates the potential of CPABs as a transformative, "membrane crossing" technology to address a variety of cutting-edge and challenging intracellular disease targets. This holds the promise for the creation of an entirely novel class of therapeutics with applications in oncology and beyond."

Prof. Savvas Savvides, Group leader at VIB Center for Inflammation Research, and Professor of Structural Biology at Ghent University, said:
"Our study clearly extends the currently charted protein-based drug-targeting landscape by targeting the well-known intracellular drug target MCL–1, a protein upregulated in multiple tumor types and correlated with therapy resistance. It is very exciting and rewarding to see how our longstanding collaboration with Complix has matured to provide the essential knowledge needed to tackle such a major and important challenge in the design of novel therapeutics."

Scientific publication
Erwin Pannecoucke, Maaike Van Trimpont, Johan Desmet, Tim Pieters, Lindy Reunes, Lisa Demoen, Marnik Vuylsteke, Stefan Loverix, Karen Vandenbroucke, Philippe Alard, Paula Henderikx, Sabrina Deroo, Franky Baatz, Eric Lorent, Sophie Thiolloy, Klaartje Somers, Yvonne McGrath, Pieter Van Vlierberghe, Ignace Lasters, Savvas N. Savvides. Cell-penetrating Alphabody protein scaffolds for intracellular drug targeting. Science Advances, 26 March 2021: Vol. 7, no. 13.

On March 31, 2021 BioCanRx researchers Dean Fergusson, Justin Presseau, Natasha Kekre, Harold Atkins, Kednapa Thavorn, Rob Holt, Manoj Lalu, and patient representative Terry Hawrysh reported that they have recently published results in two medical journals from their BioCanRx-funded project, "Getting better Outcomes with Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell therapy (GO–CART): A BioCanRx Research Excelerator to Safely and Effectively Translate CAR T-Cell Therapy for Hematological Malignancies" (Press release, BioCanRx, MAR 31, 2021, View Source;utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=biocanrx-funded-researchers-publish-results-car-t-csei-project [SID1234577433]).

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The study, which began in 2017, aimed to bring together experts from different backgrounds as well as patient representatives to formulate a feasible, safe, effective, and economical trial protocol that addressed the pitfalls some early-phase trials have faced in the past. Its ultimate aim was to help BioCanRx scientists effectively use CAR T cells in Canada.

Read about the results of their research below:

Navigating choice in the face of uncertainty: using a theory informed qualitative approach to identifying potential patient barriers and enablers to participating in an early phase chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapy trial

Partnering with patients to get better outcomes with chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy: towards engagement of patients in early phase trials