In the latest deal from the burgeoning antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) space, Eisai Co. Ltd. and privately held Bliss Biopharmaceutical (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd. reached a development and commercialization agreement that could be worth up to $2 billion. The massive collaboration is the eighth largest so far this year and one of three that involve ADCs in the year’s top 10 deals. The year’s biggest, according to BioWorld statistics, is the partnership extension between Evotec SE and Bristol Myers Squibb Co. to identify neurodegenerative disease therapies for eight years. The other ADC deals involve Synaffix BV, which signed a $2 billion pact in January with Amgen Inc., and a $2.2 billion expanded deal in February with Macrogenics Inc.
The idea for a new company, Ten63 Therapeutics Inc., started in 2015, when Gilda Szacher Frenkel passed away at age 62 from pancreatic cancer. After sequencing her tumor, her son Marcel discovered that her cancer was driven by mutations to key proteins that regulate cellular processes – all the “usual suspects,” he said. At the time, he remembers they were initially encouraged by the discovery and excited to search for developed drugs that could help her. “Here was this blueprint telling us what was wrong,” Marcel Frenkel said, “but, unfortunately, those mutations were unactionable. There were no drugs to modulate the main oncologic drivers.”
Biosplice Therapeutics Inc. has prepared and tested pyrrolo[2,1-F][1,2,4]triazines derivatives acting as dual specificity tyrosine-phosphorylation-regulated kinase 1A (DYRK1A) inhibitors and reported to be useful for the treatment of cancer, diabetes and neurological disorders.
Tango Therapeutics Inc. has patented histone-lysine N-methyltransferase EHMT1 (H3-K9-HMTase 5; GLP) and/or EHMT2 inhibitors reported to be useful for the treatment of cancer, sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia.
Researchers from Bliss Biopharmaceutical Co. Ltd. presented the discovery and preclinical evaluation of BB-1701, a new HER2-targeting eribulin-containing antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) being developed as a potential new anticancer agent.
Human natural killer (NK) cells play an essential role in tumor surveillance and can attack malignant cells in an antigen-independent manner. Because of this, allogeneic NK cells can be engineered as off-the-shelf therapies and may be used to target different hematological malignancies or solid tumors.
Protein S-palmitoylation is a post-translational lipid modification that regulates the stability and cellular distribution of numerous cancer-related proteins. A family of 23 palmitoyl transferases, called zinc finger Asp-His-His-Cys-type (ZDHHC), mediates this lipid modification. However, the potential role of palmitoyl transferases in tumor progression and immunotherapy in pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD) remains unexplored.
Around 73,000 women are diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) every year in the U.S. and EU. TNBC grows and spreads faster than other types of breast cancer; moreover, it has less treatment options, and usually, a worse prognosis.
A method for parallel sequencing of single-cell extrachromosomal circular DNA (ecDNA) and full-length mRNA transcriptomes has enabled new insights into the roles of ecDNA in cancer progression, researchers from Charité hospital and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine reported in Nature Genetics on May 8, 2023. Circular DNAs are present in at least a third of cancer cells, and their presence correlates with poor prognosis in many cases. They can carry driver genes that have separated themselves from their chromosome of origin, and some research suggests that they serve as “reserve copies” of driver genes. Boundless Bio Inc. is in phase I trials targeting ecDNAs.
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