On April 8, 2021 Personalis, Inc. (Nasdaq: PSNL), a leader in advanced genomics for cancer, reported that the company will present new data in scientific posters to be presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) Annual Meeting 2021, which will be held online, April 10-15, 2021 and May 17-21, 2021 (Press release, Personalis, APR 8, 2021, View Source [SID1234577754]).

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These abstracts showcase data from ImmunoID NeXT, the first platform to enable comprehensive analysis of both a tumor and its immune microenvironment from a single sample. The ImmunoID NeXT Platform can be used to investigate the key tumor- and immune-related areas of cancer biology, consolidating multiple oncology biomarker assays into one and maximizing the biological information that can be generated from a precious tumor specimen.

Following are details and links to the scientific posters that will be presented at the online meeting.

Poster Number, Session Category and Session Title

Title & Presenter

Date

Location

399

Clinical Research (Excluding Trials)

Biomarkers Predictive of Therapeutic Benefit

Pan-cancer survey of HLA loss of heterozygosity using a robustly validated NGS-based machine learning algorithm

Presenter: Rachel Marty Pyke, PhD

April 10, 2021

Online

555

Clinical Research (Excluding Trials)

Liquid Biopsies: Circulating DNA

Longitudinal exome-scale liquid biopsy monitoring of evolving therapeutic resistance mechanisms in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients receiving anti-PD-1 therapy

Presenter: Charles Abbott, PhD

April 10, 2021

Online

1898

Immunology
Tumor

Antigenicity/Processing and Presentation

Accurate modeling of antigen processing and MHC peptide presentation using large-scale immunopeptidomes and a novel machine learning framework

Presenter: Rachel Marty Pyke, PhD

April 10, 2021

Online

2227

Molecular and Cellular Biology / Genetics

Genomic Profiling of Tumors

Pan-cancer shedding patterns of tumor circulating cell free DNA

Presenter: Fábio Navarro, PhD

April 10, 2021

Online

2241

Molecular and Cellular Biology / Genetics

Genomic Profiling of Tumors

Profiling tumor-infiltrating immune cells using an augmented transcriptome

Presenter: Eric Levy, PhD

April 10

On April 8, 2021 Luoqi Biotechnology reported the completion of Series A+ financing of tens of millions of yuan (Press release, Novamab, APR 8, 2021, View Source [SID1234637753]). This round of financing was led by Hongyun Fund, a partnership between Huatai Zijin and Alibaba Health, and was followed by Daoyuan Capital. , Haoyue Capital continues to serve as the exclusive financial advisor.

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This round of financing will continue to be used for IND filing and clinical development of two inhaled nanobody asthma treatments, as well as preclinical development of other respiratory and autoimmune disease pipelines. In addition, Luoqi is also about to build a 500L GMP Pichia pastoris production plant that can meet clinical phase II sample preparation. In the next 1-2 years, three products will enter the clinical research stage.

Dr. Wan Yakun, founder and general manager of Luoqi Biotech, said "Luoqi Biotechnology is a nanobody biopharmaceutical R&D company focusing on the entire industry chain. It is committed to the industrialization of innovative biopharmaceutical achievements and the research and development of targeted new drugs. It has established a complete nanobody new drug development system, integrating early screening and research and development of nanobodies. The late-stage process development of candidate drugs is effectively combined to form a systematic and complete R&D system, which is at the leading level in the industry domestically and even internationally. Thank you very much to investors for their high recognition of our team and projects! The success of this round of financing provides a strong guarantee for the rapid advancement of the company’s new drug projects. We will continue to delve into the field of respiratory and autoimmune diseases and accelerate the development of corresponding products."

Ms. Cao Qun, Chairman of Huatai Zijin said the founding team of Luoqi Biotech has rich R&D experience and international vision in the field of nanobodies. Based on the in-depth understanding of the advantages of nanobody drugs, the team develops innovative drug delivery methods for large market space indications, improves the accessibility and medication compliance of antibody drugs, and benefits patients at home and abroad. We are firmly optimistic about the future development of the nanobody industry and the company’s unique potential to become a domestic leader in this field. Huatai Zijin will adhere to the investment philosophy of "grow together with entrepreneurs" and rely on its own resources to continue to support the company’s development.

Mr. Zhang Dafeng, Chairman of Daoyuan Capital, said Luoqi Biotech has a leading position in the field of domestic nanobodies. It has systematically established the core competitive Pichia pastoris CMC platform and nanobody rapid screening platform. In order to give full play to the compliance of nanobody delivery methods, the production of low Characteristics such as cost and ease of engineering transformation have laid a good foundation. We are full of expectations for the innovative drug projects currently developed by Luoqi Biotech and hope to be approved for marketing as soon as possible to meet the clinical needs of patients and reduce the cost burden of patients.

On April 8, 2021 Anavex Life Sciences Corp. ("Anavex" or the "Company") (Nasdaq: AVXL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing differentiated therapeutics for the treatment of neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Rett syndrome and other central nervous system (CNS) disorders, reported that Christopher U. Missling, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Anavex, will present at the 20th Annual Needham Virtual Healthcare Conference on Thursday, April 15, 2021 at 8:45 a.m. EDT (Press release, Anavex Life Sciences, APR 8, 2021, View Source [SID1234577722]).

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A live audio webcast will be available on View Source or in the Investors section of the Company’s website at www.anavex.com. An audio archive of the session will also be available on the website.

On April 8, 2021 Varian (NYSE: VAR) reported it is collaborating with Google Cloud to build an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) based diagnostic platform to aid in the fight against cancer (Press release, Varian Medical Systems, APR 8, 2021, View Source [SID1234577738]). Varian and Google Cloud AI embarked on a deployment journey, using Neural Architecture Search (NAS) technology via Google Cloud AI Platform, to create AI models for organ segmentation—a crucial and labor-intensive step in radiation oncology that can be a bottleneck in the cancer treatment clinical workflow.

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Organ segmentation is the process of identifying the organs and tissues in diagnostic images that must be targeted or protected during a course of radiation therapy. These segmented images are then used to create radiotherapy treatment plans that specify where and how much dose will be deposited during treatment. This is a labor-intensive process that can take a clinician hours per patient. In some regions of the world, segmentation is a limiting factor in cancer patients’ access to advanced treatments like intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) that require accurate organ segmentation.

Varian is using Google Cloud AI Platform’s NAS technology to create an AI segmentation engine that is being "trained," using Varian’s proprietary treatment planning image data, to create customized auto-segmentation models for organs in the body. Varian intends to incorporate these models into its treatment planning software tools for use in cancer centers around the world.

"At Varian, we are working towards a world without fear of cancer, where high-quality cancer care—personalized and optimized for each patient—is available everywhere. To that end, we have committed ourselves to Intelligent Cancer Care, which seeks to automate routine or repetitive tasks in the radiation oncology workflow through the use of smart algorithms, machine learning, and AI," said Corey Zankowski, Senior Vice President, Technology and Innovation Office, Varian. "This collaboration with Google Cloud will turbocharge our efforts in this area."

"At Google Cloud, we believe AI technology has the power to impact a wide variety of industries, which is especially true in the field of medicine," said Craig Wiley, Director of Product Management, Google Cloud. "We are excited to see how Varian accelerates AI innovation and segmentation quality to improve cancer care with radiation therapy using our state-of-the-art NAS technology. As Varian’s AI platform of choice, our teams are working closely to deliver best-in-class AI for cancer treatment to patients around the world."

On April 8, 2021 Portage Biotech reported that began the first human study of its invariant natural killer T-cell agonist, PORT-3, in patients with advanced or metastatic solid tumors that express NY-ESO-1 (Press release, Portage Biotech, APR 8, 2021, View Source [SID1234579565]).

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The drug is a coformulation of the invariant natural killer T-cell agonist and a tumor-specific antigen targeting NY-ESO-1. The Phase I dose escalation study, called PRECIOUS-01, will evaluate PORT-3 at three dose levels in about 15 participants. Study participants are being screened for NY-ESO-1 expression using immunohistochemistry.

Researchers will use an IHC assay to measure participants’ immune responses and determine the composition of immune cell subsets before and after treatment with PORT-3 to establish the recommended Phase II dose. They will also measure the immunological responses in blood to determine the functional response of invariant natural killer T cells and T cells.

Portage is currently developing two invariant natural killer T-cell agonists, PORT-2 and PORT-3. "Preclinical studies of both compounds have shown that treatment can lead to a broad reprogramming of the immune system," Portage CEO Ian Walters said in a statement. "We are excited to begin first-in-human trials of PORT-3 to test the proof-of-concept of this approach. If the trial is successful with NY-ESO-1, it will open the door to a multitude of opportunities to design more formulations with other tumor-specific antigens."

The PRECIOUS-01 trial is funded by the EU Horizon 2020 program and recruitment has begun at Radboud University in the Netherlands.