Gilead Sciences Inc. has officially discontinued work on anti-CD47 antibody magrolimab in hematologic cancers, nearly four years after shelling out $4.9 billion to acquire its developer, Forty Seven Inc. The company announced in its full-year 2023 earnings Feb. 6 call that the phase III Enhance-3 study testing magrolimab as a first-line treatment in unfit acute myeloid leukemia patients was discontinued following a futility analysis and higher incidence of grade 5 adverse events.
Wall Street will be watching closely for such adverse effects as anemia that foiled Gilead Sciences Inc.’s CD47-binding magrolimab earlier this year, but so far Shattuck Labs Inc.’s SL-172154 looks strong in combination with azacitidine to treat front-line higher-risk myelodysplastic syndrome (HR-MDS) and TP53-mutant (TP53m) acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
I-Mab Biopharma Co. Ltd. has regained full rights to its CD47 antibody program from Abbvie Inc., including lemzoparlimab, the most advanced candidate. The move, disclosed in a Sept. 22 U.S. SEC filing, eliminates the potential $1.295 billion in milestones associated with the amended collaboration deal signed in 2022.
I-Mab Biopharma Co. Ltd. has regained full rights to its CD47 antibody program from Abbvie Inc., including lemzoparlimab, the most advanced candidate. The move, disclosed in a Sept. 22 U.S. SEC filing, eliminates the potential $1.295 billion in milestones associated with the amended collaboration deal signed in 2022.
After raising HKD$320 million (US$40.8 million) in its IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last week, Immuneonco Biopharmaceuticals Co. Ltd.’s stock has continued to rise, and analysts are expecting the Hong Kong market to pick up after a slack start to the year.
Findings published in Nature showing that dual blockage of PD-L1 and CD47 can boost the therapeutic effects of oxaliplatin chemotherapy as well as the FOLFOX regimen – in a CT-26 mice tumor model, anyway – served to highlight CD47, a target that has spurred added efforts of late.
Trophoblast glycoprotein, also known as 5T4, is widely expressed in several solid tumors; cluster of differentiation 47 (CD47) is an ubiquitous immune checkpoint receptor that is also overexpressed in many solid tumors as well as in hematological cancers. A Yuhan Corp. research team has presented preclinical results on YH-38560, a bispecific fusion protein that targets both 5T4 and CD4 for the potential treatment of solid tumors.
Now, researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have shown that by targeting CD47 – better known for its role as an innate immune checkpoint akin to PD-1 and CTLA-4 in the adaptive immune system – they were able to restore muscle stem cell function. Aged mice regained muscle strength comparable to younger animals after receiving an antibody treatment targeting CD47 signaling in muscle stem cells.
Amira Barkal’s grandmother’s long fight against chronic leukemia was the germ of the idea that’s become Pheast Therapeutics Inc., which just closed a series A financing. Her treatment in a clinical trial that gave the world Gleevec (imatinib, Novartis AG) changed both of their lives.
Scenic Biotech BV has raised $31 million in a series A round, as it moves to translate its high-throughput platform for identifying genetic modifier genes that suppress or block the effects of disease-causing mutated genes into small-molecule hits and on to the clinic.