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CURE Media Group Expands Its Strategic Alliance Partnership Program With GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer

On July 22, 2020 CURE Media Group, which reaches over 1 million patients, survivors and caregivers across an industry-leading multimedia platform devoted solely to cancer updates and research, reported the addition of the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer to its Strategic Alliance Partnership (SAP) program (Press release, GO2 Foundation, JUL 22, 2020, View Source [SID1234562258]).

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"We are excited and proud to partner with the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer," said Mike Hennessy Jr., president and CEO of MJH Life Sciences, the parent company of CURE Media Group. "They work to empower the lung cancer community to help improve care, increase survivorship and drive advocacy for awareness of the disease."

The GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer was founded by lung cancer patients and survivors and is the world’s leading organization dedicated to saving, extending and improving the lives of those vulnerable, at risk and diagnosed with lung cancer. The foundation strives to change the reality of living with lung cancer by ending stigma about the disease, increasing public and private research funding, and ensuring access to care.

"We are proud to continue to work alongside CURE Media Group to educate, inform, support, and bring hope to the lung cancer community," said Laurie Fenton Ambrose, co-founder, president and CEO of GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer. "Every patient and caregiver matters, and this partnership allows us to extend our life-saving efforts to a broader community. We live up to our mantra of Whatever it takes. Whatever the need. We get it done together."

The SAP program builds a community of advocacy groups, medical associations and medical institutions to foster collaboration and an open exchange of information among trusted peers for the ultimate benefit of patients and their families. As part of this joint effort, CURE Media Group will work with the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer to share exclusive content and support the lung cancer community.

Eikonoklastes Therapeutics Closes Oversubscribed Seed Financing to Advance Next-Generation Tissue Factor (TF) Immunotherapies With Initial Focus on Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

On June 22, 2020 Eikonoklastes Therapeutics, a preclinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing next-generation tissue factor (TF) immunotherapies for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and several other diseases with unmet clinical need, reported closing of an oversubscribed seed financing (Press release, Eikonoklastes Therapeutics, JUL 22, 2020, View Source [SID1234562257]). Working with The Ohio State University Corporate Engagement Office and seed investor CincyTech, the company was formed to advance technology discovered and engineered in the lab of Dr. Zhiwei Hu, MD, PhD, and licensed from the Ohio State Innovation Foundation. CincyTech led the financing.

Eikonoklastes is developing novel immunotherapies that target tissue factor, a cell surface receptor that is prevalent in certain pathological cells– but not healthy cells– including a broad range of cancers with high unmet clinical need and high morbidity. The lead indication is triple- negative breast cancer, an aggressive cancer which accounts for 15% of all breast cancers, with an average mortality of ~18 months post diagnosis.

"There is an urgent and critical need for a novel approach," said Bruce Halpryn, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Eikonoklastes. "Eikonoklastes’ platform technology is designed for maximum efficacy and a superior safety profile, using targeted killing without the need for a toxic payload. This is a tremendous opportunity to treat numerous diseases."

Eikonoklastes’ L-ICON3 immune conjugate platform was discovered and engineered by scientific founder, Zhiwei Hu, MD, PhD, an early pioneer of tissue factor physiology, who has worked to leverage tissue factor as a highly specific and highly selective target for therapy. In his lab at Ohio State, Dr Hu has engineered molecules which attack three key components of the tumor microenvironment: the tumor cells, the disease neovasculature and tumor stem cells; activating the body’s natural immune reaction. These novel and proprietary molecules are the third generation of technology that Dr. Hu initially designed while at Yale University.

"Dr. Hu has worked on several iterations of the technology that Eikonoklastes has licensed. We are grateful for his partnership and his dedication to discovery and innovation," said Scott Osborne, vice president of economic and corporate engagement at Ohio State.

The seed round will enable the company to complete a confirmatory in vivo I.V. efficacy study, to study I.V. pharmacokinetics, and to initiate manufacturing scaleup. The company will be headquartered in Cincinnati, OH.

"We are impressed with the breadth of the opportunity, which has the potential to address critical needs for patient populations across a broad range of cancers and other diseases," said John Rice, PhD, Managing Director at CincyTech. "We are also pleased to invest in the Eikonoklastes team, led by a seasoned and successful entrepreneur in Bruce Halpryn, with whom we had worked previously on Myonexus Therapeutics."

Halpryn and Chief Scientific/Medical Officer Mark Dato, MD, PhD, are both drug development industry veterans who worked together at P&G Pharmaceuticals. More recently Halpryn was COO of Myonexus Therapeutics, a gene therapy company also backed by CincyTech that was acquired by Sarepta Therapeutics in 2019. Halpryn then approached CincyTech about his next venture, co-founding Eikonoklastes with Sam Lee, MD, MBA, MPH, who will serve as Chief Business Officer. Details of the financing are undisclosed.

ERC-USA Announces Expansion of Glioblastoma Right-to-Try Treatment for ERC1671 with NYU Winthrop Hospital

On July 22, 2020 ERC-USA, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer, reported that NYU Winthrop Hospital (NYU) has agreed to treat one of its recurrent, refractory glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) patients with ERC’s lead therapy, ERC1671, under federal and state Right-to-Try laws (RTT) (Press release, Epitopoietic Research, JUL 22, 2020, View Source [SID1234562256]).

The expansion of ERC’s RTT program makes its unique immuno-oncology GBM treatment, ERC1671, available to a wider number of patients who have exhausted all other treatment options. NYU joins the University of California, Irvine Medical Center and John Theurer Cancer Center Hackensack, NJ in treating recurrent, refractory GBM patients with ERC1671 under RTT. GBM is the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer and patients with this recurrent, refractory disease have very few options.

ERC1671 has demonstrated a clinically meaningful survival benefit among treated patients with minimal toxicity in phase 2 clinical trials. In June, ERC announced that it had submitted its Marketing Authorization Application for ERC1671 to the European Medicines Agency for conditional approval.

ERC will shortly publish a summary of its RTT experience that will include the total number of patients and median survival data. The Company previously communicated that oncologists are reporting that certain terminal patients treated with ERC1671 under RTT are experiencing unprecedented regressions of their disease. Normally, regression of recurrent glioblastoma is not experienced. One patient has already demonstrated a remission that is now in its eighteenth month with no sign of recurrence. The durability of these responses is still not known, but to the families of these patients the responses are unexpected and welcome, and they are restoring some normalcy to the lives of these terminal patients and their families.

"We are extremely eager to expand our RTT program to NYU Winthrop Hospital and we are encouraged and excited by the responses we’ve observed so far in RTT patients to ERC1671. As awareness of ERC1671 grows in the neuro-oncology community, we have been experiencing a major increase in requests for treatment under RTT protocols," commented Apostolos Stathopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., president and CEO of ERC Belgium, parent company to ERC-USA.

About ERC 1671

ERC1671 (Gliovac or Sitoiganap) is an advanced immunotherapy based on freshly extracted tumor cells and lysates that stimulates the patient’s immune system to recognize and reject cancer cells. The ERC1671 contains a combination of autologous tumor cells (cells from the patient receiving the treatment), and allogeneic tumor cells, generated from the glioma tumor tissues of three different donor cancer patients, and the lysates of all of these cells. Upon injection, this mixture stimulates the patient’s immune system to mount an immune response against the tumor cells, which may lead to their destruction.

Gliovac/ERC1671 is for patients suffering from a grade IV glioma (glioblastoma multiforme and gliosarcoma) when all other traditional treatments have failed. Further studies will target patients with newly diagnosed glioma with predictive marker indicating, unresponsiveness to Temozolomide chemotherapy (MGMT gene promoter unmethylation).

ERC1671 is currently in randomized, placebo-controlled Phase 2 clinical trials in the United States as part of combination treatment for glioblastoma multiforme and gliosarcoma and its Marketing Authorization Application has been submitted to the European Medicines Agency for conditional approval. The company’s therapeutic approach can be potentially applied to many other types of solid cancers.

ERC is based in Belgium with a cGMP manufacturing plant in the Netherlands and subsidiaries in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and an international presence through country specific agreements. To learn more, please visit View Source

T3 Pharma raises 25M CHF to advance bacterial cancer therapy through clinic

On July 22, 2020 T3 Pharmaceuticals AG ("T3 Pharma"), a Swiss biotech advancing immuno-oncology with its bacteria-based protein delivery platform, reported the closing of its third financing round, raising over 25M CHF (Press release, T3 Pharmaceuticals, JUL 22, 2020, View Source [SID1234562255]).

The financing was co-led by existing investors, including the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF), Reference Capital SA, Wille Finance AG and private investors, who all participated in the round. This latest financing brings T3 Pharma’s total funding since the launch of the Company in 2015 to 40 million CHF.

T3 Pharma will use the funds primarily to progress its lead candidate, T3P-Y058-739, through clinical studies. The Phase 1/2 clinical study in solid tumors is planned to start in early 2021.

T3P-Y058-739 is the first therapeutic candidate developed using T3 Pharma’s proprietary protein delivery platform. The technology is built on the discovery that the bacterial type III secretion (T3S) system can be repurposed to deliver chosen proteins into eukaryotic cells.1 T3 Pharma’s live bacteria vehicles have been optimised to accumulate and grow selectively at solid tumors, where they produce and deliver the therapeutic protein.

Dr. Simon Ittig, T3 Pharma’s CEO, commented: "This significant financing round comes at a pivotal moment for our company as we leverage the full potential of our proprietary platform and enter the clinic with our lead candidate. We are grateful to our investors for their continued support."

"Our novel approach to deliver bioactive proteins selectively to cancerous cells using live bacteria has the potential to revolutionize treatment of solid tumors," added Dr. Olivier Valdenaire, Chairman of the Board.

Dr. Frank Kalkbrenner, Global Head of BIVF, commented: "Since I joined the Board last year, I have been impressed not only by the technology, but also by the team and the approach they have taken to building T3 Pharma’s innovative, differentiated platform and progressing its lead candidate. It is an endorsement of the quality of the science and the team that another financing round has been completed with an exceptional group of investors, which share our vision of improving the lives of cancer patients."

Cullinan Oncology Launches Cullinan Amber to Pioneer Next-Generation Cytokine Fusion Proteins for Cancer Therapy

On July 22, 2020 Cullinan Oncology, LLC reported the launch of Cullinan Amber, a company focused on developing a next generation immuno-oncology platform to enhance the therapeutic window of immune-stimulatory cytokine combinations for the treatment of cancer (Press release, Cullinan Oncology, JUL 22, 2020, View Source [SID1234562254]). Cullinan Amber has acquired an exclusive license from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for technology based on the seminal work of K. Dane Wittrup, the C. P. Dubbs Professor in Chemical Engineering and Biological Engineering, to develop novel multifunctional constructs that are retained in the tumor microenvironment via collagen binding, which enables prolonged local activity of immunostimulatory cytokine combinations. Cullinan Amber’s lead program is a single agent comprised of two potent antitumor cytokines, interleukin-12 (IL-12) and interleukin-2 (IL-2), along with a collagen-binding domain. IND-enabling studies are expected to commence in 2H20.

"We are delighted to have the opportunity to work with Dane and his team," stated Patrick Baeuerle, Chief Scientific Officer, Biologics and co-founder of Cullinan Oncology. "The Wittrup lab has developed a pioneering approach that we believe has the potential to combine and finally enable pro-inflammatory cytokines to realize their full potential as effective, safe and well-controlled cancer therapeutics."

"Historically, numerous studies have shown that cytokine combinations, including IL-12 and IL-2, can synergistically enhance both innate and adaptive immunity, and mediate impressive antitumor activity across a range of preclinical tumor models," stated Jon Wigginton, Chief Medical Officer of Cullinan Oncology. "Clinically, however, many cytokines have been limited by systemic toxicity, and were developed without the benefit of key learnings regarding dosing, supportive care and patient selection that have emerged in the field of immuno-oncology."

To address this challenge, the Wittrup Lab, as described in a groundbreaking publication in the June 2019 issue of Science Translational Medicine (Momin et al., 26 June 2019), fused various cytokines to a collagen-binding protein and injected them directly into the tumor, which effectively retained the cytokines locally, minimized their systemic dissemination and toxicities, and prolonged their anti-tumor activity. Most importantly, non-injected tumors likewise shrank in response to therapy due to the induction of a systemic immune response.