OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 1, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Modis Therapeutics, Inc., a company developing medicines for patients with rare genetic diseases, announced today a $30M Series A investment led by F-Prime Capital Partners and OrbiMed. Joshua Grass, former F-Prime Entrepreneur-in-Residence and head of Corporate Development at BioMarin Pharmaceutical, has joined as President and Chief Executive Officer. F-Prime’s Ben Auspitz and OrbiMed’s Rishi Guptahave joined the board, with Mr. Auspitz as Chairman.  F-Prime and OrbiMed have each invested in multiple successful rare disease companies, including Ultragenyx, Orchard Therapeutics, Enobia Pharma, True North Therapeutics, Dimension Therapeutics, and others. Founding investor Aceras Life Sciences, LLC and new investor Osage University Partners also participated in the financing.

Modis is advancing its lead experimental therapy, MT1621, as a treatment for thymidine kinase 2 deficiency (TK2d), a rare, genetically defined mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) depletion disorder.  TK2d results from inherited mutations in the nuclear TK2 gene and leads to severe muscle weakness and premature death.  TK2d symptom onset varies in age from infants to adults and there are currently no approved treatments.  The development of MT1621 is based on research from the lab of Dr. Michio Hirano, the chief of the Division of Neuromuscular Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, the lab of Dr. Ramon Martí, the head of the Neuromuscular and Mitochondrial Pathology Research Group at Vall d’Hebron Research Institute in Barcelona, and other academic collaborators.  Modis has exclusively licensed worldwide rights to data and intellectual property related to a broad range of mtDNA depletion disorders from Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Vall d’Hebron Research Institute.

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SUZHOU, China, Sept. 29, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Innovent Biologics, Inc. (Innovent), a world-class China-based biopharmaceutical company that develops high quality drugs, announced yesterday that its IND application for IBI-188, a fully human anti-CD47 monoclonal antibody (mAb) drug candidate, has been approved by the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to initiate clinical trials for patients with advanced malignancies and lymphomas.

IBI-188 is the second Innovent molecule to be approved for clinical trials by the FDA. In January, 2018 the FDA IND for IBI308 (Sintilimab, an anti-PD-1 antibody) was also approved. Innovent is the first Chinese biopharmaceutical company to receive clinical trial approval for a CD47 monoclonal antibody from the FDA.

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 27, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Akrevia Therapeutics, a privately-held biopharmaceutical company focused on developing highly-potent, tumor-targeted immuno-oncology therapeutics, today announced the closing of a $30 million Series A financing led by F-Prime Capital Partners and Atlas Venture. The investors have come together to recruit an experienced management team to accelerate Akrevia’s pipeline and proprietary Aklusion^® platform, which allows therapeutic antibodies, cytokines and chemokines to be specifically activated in the tumor microenvironment and tailored with precisely optimized pharmacologic properties.

Akrevia will be led by Tim Clackson, Ph.D., as President and Head of R&D and Nessan Bermingham, Ph.D., as Executive Chairman. Dr. Clackson joins Akrevia after serving as President of R&D at ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, where he led the discovery and development of Iclusig^® (ponatinib) and Alunbrig^® (brigatinib), two FDA-approved cancer therapeutics. Dr. Bermingham was most recently CEO of Intellia Therapeutics, a leading gene editing company which he founded, built, and took public.

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Dr Keeney joins NodThera with over 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience, including most recently at Sanofi and prior to that at Johnson & Johnson

Cambridge, UK and Boston, MA, 24 September 2018. NodThera, a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of next generation NLRP3 inflammasome inhibitors for the treatment of diseases driven by chronic inflammation, today announces the appointment of Adam Keeney PhD as President and Chief Executive Officer, with immediate effect. Adam will join the NodThera Board of Directors and will also establish a new office for the Company in the Boston, MA area. Alan Watt, who has been Chief Scientific Officer and acting as interim Chief Executive Officer of the Company since its inception, will now resume his role as full-time CSO.

Dr Keeney has over 20 years of international experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He joins NodThera from Sanofi Genzyme, where he served as Global Head of Sanofi Genzyme Business Development. In this role, he was responsible for leading all of Sanofi Genzyme’s business development activities, including early and late stage deals, supporting each of Sanofi’s specialty care therapeutic areas which include Immunology, Neurology, Oncology, Rare Diseases and Rare Blood Disorders. Dr Keeney was also Chair of the internal governance body that oversaw the review, prioritisation and execution of all external R&D investments, as well as management of the external research budget.

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SUZHOU, China, Sept. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Innovent Biologics, Inc. (Innovent), a world-class China-based biopharmaceutical company that develops and commercializes high quality drugs, today presented clinical research data on cohort C at the 2018 Annual Meeting of Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology (CSCO). The study is a phase Ib clinical trial (NCT02937116) in which NSCLC patients with disease progression failed from prior therapy were treated with sintilimab (a fully human anti-programmed cell death 1 monoclonal antibody).

37 patients who had progressed on at least one line of prior therapies were enrolled, and 34 patients have had at least one radiological assessment. Patients receiving sintilimab monotherapy enjoyed an objective response rate (ORR) of 17.6% based on irRECIST criteria, a median progression free survival (PFS) of 2.8 months, medium overall survival of 13.8 months and as of the medium follow-up time of 8.4 months.

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