Sinocelltech Group Ltd. has received marketing approval for its recombinant chimeric anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody, ripertamab (SCT-400), from China’s NMPA to treat patients with CD20-positive diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. The country’s first homegrown anti-CD20 therapy, ripertamab has been shown to have similar efficacy to global blockbuster rituximab but with a superior safety profile.
Collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body, which would seem to make it an unlikely source for an immunotherapy target. But it is where researchers from Immatics SA and the University of Pennsylvania have found a target that was expressed on stromal cells in a number of different solid tumors, but very rare in normal tissues.
Ocean Biomedical Inc., a company with preclinical programs in oncology, fibrosis, infectious disease treatments and vaccines, is poised to go public via a merger with Aesther Healthcare Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
It’s another setback for Jounce Therapeutics Inc. Top-line data from the phase II Select study of vopratelimab, the company’s lead candidate, combined with pimivalimab vs. pimivalimab alone in 69 patients missed its primary endpoint of mean tumor change when averaged over nine and 18 weeks. The clinical trial participants were immunotherapy naïve, immunotherapy TISvopra biomarker-selected, second-line non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients.
Australian radiopharmaceutical company Advancell Co. Ltd. closed an AU$18 million (US$12.4 million) series B round that will take its lead targeted alpha-emitting radiotherapy, ADVC-001, for metastatic prostate cancer to the clinic by the end of 2022.
Sirnaomics Ltd. went five for five in its study of treating cutaneous basal cell carcinoma. Five of five patients in a cohort of the open-label, dose-escalation phase II study of STP-705, composed of two sIRNA oligonucleotides targeting transforming growth factor beta 1 and cyclooxygenase-2, had a 100% complete response.
Having initiated its first two clinical trials in non-small-cell lung cancer since January, Nuvalent Inc. said it expects to unveil preliminary dose-escalation data before year-end. Ahead of the data, Nuvalent's phase I/II Arros-1 trial evaluating NVL-520, a kinase inhibitor, in patients with advanced ROS1-positive NSCLC and other solid tumors, continues to enroll participants.
How to get reasonable efficacy in cancer without toxicity – problematic especially in older patients – is a dilemma made ever more poignant by the advent of CAR T therapies and bispecific antibodies, which have been showing overall response rates of about 70%, but with side effects that can severely limit their use. Invariant natural killer T cells may provide an answer, and New York-based Mink Therapeutics Inc. aims to find out.
Japan’s Healios K.K. is in discussions with Japan’s Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Agenc about the regulatory path forward for its Multistem somatic stem cell products, for which it conducted phase II/III trials in ischemic stroke and a phase II trial in acute respiratory distress syndrome.
3T Biosciences Inc. raised $40 million in a series A funding round to take forward a platform for identifying novel T-cell receptors (TCR) and their targets, which is based on the work of scientific co-founder K. Christopher Garcia of Stanford University.
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