PERTH, Australia – Australian immuno-oncology company Imugene Ltd. signed a deal to in-license an oncolytic virus known as CF33 from the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles, in a move to bolster its pipeline and open up a new area of growth for the company, said CEO Leslie Chong.

Despite the arrival of FDA-approved tissue-agnostic targeted cancer therapies, there is increasing recognition that the response of tumors that are driven by the same oncogene differs according to their location.

Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc's acquisition of Redx Pharma plc's pan-RAF inhibitor program for treating RAF- and RAS-mutant tumors was rocket fuel for Redx's stock (AIM:REDX), which closed 108% higher than it opened, offering some relief for the struggling company.

The Warburg effect – the marked preference of tumors for fueling themselves via anaerobic metabolism – was described more than 90 years ago. Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize for his discovery in 1931, and research into the phenomenon long dominated the field of tumor metabolism. Over the past decade, however, there has been increased attention to the fact that tumor metabolism is deregulated in multiple ways beyond the Warburg effect.