On March 11, 2021 Redx Pharma reported a secured £3.9 million in funding from investors, including Alderley Park Ventures and BioCity (Press release, Redx Pharma, MAR 11, 2021, View Source [SID1234576479]). The funding marked a major milestone for KScan, its next-generation biomarker and molecular diagnostics platform for treating cancer patients and other conditions.

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Redx Pharma’s Lisa Anson talked about the company’s multi-million global licensing deal with pharma giant AstraZeneca, which will further develop and commercialise its treatment for sufferers of fibrotic diseases, and its other recent fundraising milestones.

The episode also heard Dr Kath Mackay discuss Alderley Park’s business support programme the Alderley Park Accelerator, which mentors companies through the investment process, and showcase why creating connections is so important.

Alderley Park, a development by Bruntwood SciTech, is the UK’s largest single-site life science campus and offers bioscience facilities for R&D-focussed life science companies at every stage of their lifecycle, from start-up to global corporate.

Episode two of its podcast looked at why university connections are vital for a life science and tech cluster like Alderley Park and how the campus works to inspire the next generation of scientists.

Meanwhile, the first episode focused on the challenges of rapidly building capacity for thousands of COVID tests at the Alderley Park Lighthouse Lab.

On March 11, 2021 Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (TSE:4502/NYSE:TAK) ("Takeda") reported its ambition for above-market, double-digit revenue growth of its Growth and Emerging Markets Business Unit ("GEM BU") (Press release, Takeda, MAR 11, 2021, View Source [SID1234576538]). The revenue goal of JPY 1 trillion (approximately US$9 billion) by FY2030 represents more than doubling of current revenues in GEM BU. This potential growth will be primarily driven by a balanced geographical focus and targeted portfolio investments in the Company’s highly innovative 14 Global Brands and Wave 1 pipeline assets.

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"Building upon Takeda’s global vision to bring long-term value to patients, society and shareholders, we have sharpened our regional strategy to deliver healthcare in geographies that include 85% of the world’s population. As a purpose-led, patient-centric and values-based company, our portfolio combines innovative therapies with the right degree of scale to be competitive. Together with attractive market fundamentals and an executive team equipped to deliver strong business performance, we are committed to delivering sustainable revenue growth while increasing patient access to our life-saving and life-transforming treatments," said Ricardo Marek, President of Growth & Emerging Markets Business Unit at Takeda.

With 95%3 of GEM BU’s current revenues coming from innovative treatments aligned with the company’s five key business areas, GEM BU has an ambition to outpace forecasted market revenue growth for the region over the next ten years. As a vast geographic area with a combined population of 6.5 billion, the Emerging Markets region presents significant growth opportunities in unmet patient needs across key therapy areas, which we believe can be achieved by a globally-aligned ‘access-first’ strategy.

"Emerging Markets will be a key source of revenue and momentum for Takeda over the next decade, with a strategy aligned to our global innovation focus," said Costa Saroukos, Takeda chief financial officer. "Through targeted investments in the portfolio and key markets, we expect growth of the GEM BU to outpace the market for specialized, innovative treatments, as we expand our 14 global brands and launch our Wave 1 pipeline assets in the region."

Takeda’s GEM BU is targeting expansion in high growth markets such as Brazil, China and India. These markets are expected to provide strong platforms for continued growth of existing brands and upcoming launches of our Wave 1 pipeline assets across key therapeutic areas. China in particular is expected to be a significant growth driver for Takeda on a regional and global level, with the potential to deliver revenue growth at a compound annual growth rate of over 20% over the next five years.1

Takeda’s innovative R&D engine is also expected to add potentially transformative therapies to the GEM BU’s current portfolio. Among the Wave 1 pipeline assets, Takeda’s dengue vaccine candidate (TAK-003), developed to address the 390 million global dengue infections every year, is projected to be a significant growth driver for the region, with the majority of projected revenues coming from GEM BU.

For sustainable growth in Emerging Markets, Takeda is committed to ensuring that patients get continued access to innovative medicines. This includes strengthening local health systems and prioritizing sustainable approaches to commercial operations. The recently published 2021 Access to Medicine (AtM) Index has ranked Takeda first in Governance of Access, highlighting its work in the strengthening of health systems and compliance.

On March 11, 2021 CASI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: CASI), a U.S. biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing innovative therapeutics and pharmaceutical products, reported the Company will host a conference call at 8:00 a.m. ET on Friday, March 12, 2020 (Press release, CASI Pharmaceuticals, MAR 11, 2021, View Source [SID1234576559]).

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On the call, CASI’s Chairman & CEO will provide an update on recent business developments and review upcoming milestones. The conference call can be accessed by dialing (877) 405-1224 (U.S.), (86) 400-120-2840 (China), (800) 965-561 (Hong Kong) to listen to the live presentation. The live webcast can be accessed at the following link: https://78449.themediaframe.com/dataconf/productusers/casi/mediaframe/44098/indexl.html

The archived webcast will be available for a year in the Investor Center section at: www.casipharmaceuticals.com.

On March 11, 2021 Harpoon Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: HARP), a clinical-stage immunotherapy company developing a novel class of T cell engagers, reported publication of abstracts for three poster presentations at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) Annual Meeting (Press release, Harpoon Therapeutics, MAR 11, 2021, View Source [SID1234576589]). The AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) Annual Meeting Week 1 will be held virtually from April 10-15, 2021. Posters will be available on Harpoon’s website following the presentations.

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Full abstracts of the following presentations are available online at www.aacr.org:

Title: FLT3-targeting TriTACs are T cell engagers for treatment of acute myeloid leukemia
Abstract #: 913
Presenter: Richard J. Austin, Ph.D.
Session Category: Experimental and Molecular Therapeutics
Session Title: PO.ET01.01 – Antibody Technologies
Date/time: April 10, 2021, 8:30 a.m – 11:59 p.m. EDT

Title: ProTriTAC is a modular and robust T cell engager prodrug platform with therapeutic index expansion observed across multiple tumor targets
Abstract #: 933
Presenter: S. Jack Lin, Ph.D.
Session Category: Experimental and Molecular Therapeutics
Session Title: PO.ET01.02 – Biochemical Modulators of the Therapeutic Index
Date/time: April 10, 2021, 8:30 a.m – 11:59 p.m. EDT

Title: Combinatorial antitumor effects of CD3-based trispecific T cell activating constructs (TriTACs) and checkpoint inhibitors in preclinical models
Abstract #: 1573
Presenter: Mary Ellen Molloy, Ph.D.
Session Category: Immunology
Session Title: PO.IM02.02 – Combination Immunotherapies
Date/time: April 10, 2021, 8:30 a.m – 11:59 p.m. EDT

On March 11, 2021 Pacylex Pharmaceuticals, an oncology company unlocking a new approach to cancer therapy, reported the receipt of a No Objection Letter from Health Canada on March 8, 2021, opening the way for a planned Phase 1 Trial of PCLX-001 in relapsed/refractory B-cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and advanced solid malignancies (Press release, Pacylex Pharmaceuticals, MAR 11, 2021, View Source [SID1234645064]). Pacylex is developing this NMT inhibitor, PCLX-001, as a first in class therapy for various cancers. PCLX-001 is believed to be the first NMT inhibitor that will be clinically tested.

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Three principal investigators will oversee the clinical study at three clinical sites in Canada: Dr. John Kuruvilla at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, Dr. Randeep Sangha at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton and Dr. Laurie Sehn at the British Columbia Cancer Center in Vancouver.

"Health Canada approval to conduct this trial is an exciting step in bringing PCLX-001 into the clinic. As a first-in-class agent with a new mechanism of action, we plan to see how well people with lymphoma and other cancers tolerate the drug and hope to see some of them benefit," said Dr. Sangha, MD FRCPC, Director, Clinical Trials Unit, Cross Cancer Institute.

Dr. Kuruvilla added "We are excited to be working with other Canadian research teams and Pacylex to study a novel therapy with a unique mechanism of action in patients with lymphoma". Dr. Kuruvilla is Clinician Investigator in the Cancer Clinical Research Unit (CCRU), Princess Margaret Cancer Centre.

Clinical site preparations are underway for the open label, dose escalation, Phase 1 clinical trial, principally to evaluate the safety of PCLX-001. The study will enroll 20-30 patients and the Company anticipates that enrollment will begin in the second quarter of 2021.

Pacylex received a milestone-based Alberta Innovates AICE grant in 2020 to help fund this study, and the No Objection Letter triggered the first milestone payment from this grant. The Alberta Cancer Foundation and the Cure Cancer Foundation both provided support for this research.

PCLX-001

PCLX-001 is a small molecule, first-in-class N-myristoyltransferase (NMT) inhibitor, originally developed by the University of Dundee Drug Discovery Unit as part of a program to treat African sleeping sickness funded by Wellcome Trust. Pacylex is developing PCLX-001, which has excellent oral bioavailabilty, to treat leukemia and lymphoma. PCLX-001 selectively kills cancer cells and completely regresses (eliminates) tumors in animal models of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and Burkitt’s lymphoma (BL). PCLX-001 has also been shown to inhibit the growth of lung and breast cancer tumors in animal models. In leukemia, lymphoma and breast cancer patients, the level of NMT2 is correlated with survival, suggesting an important biological role in these cancers. In tests using cultured cancer cells in vitro, PCLX-001 is at least ten times as potent as Ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and Dasatinib (Sprycel), two clinically approved drugs currently used to treat hematologic malignancies.