Weekly Quick Hits (Philly) – Week of October 9, 2023

Bristol Myers Squibb bought Mirati for $4.8 billion, Courage co-founders awarded $40 million NIH grant and AstraZeneca awarded 8 postdocs special research awards. For those and more Philadelphia region life science stories, keep reading.

By Mark Terry | October 13, 2023

Quick Hits is BioBuzz’s weekly round up of all the life science news you don’t want to miss, in your region of interest. Don’t miss a beat; SUBSCRIBE to our weekly Quick Hits newsletter via LinkedIn (BioHealth Capital Region, Greater Philadelphia, Research Triangle Park) or get it delivered to your inbox every week.

Funding, Awards and Collaborations 

Bristol Myers Squibb Buys Mirati Therapeutics for $4.8 Billion

Bristol Myers Squibb (Princeton, NJ) acquired San Diego-based Mirati Therapeutics for $58 per share in cash for a total equity value of $4.8 billion. Mirati stockholders will also receive one non-tradeable Contingent Value Right (CVR) for each Mirati share held, representing an additional $1.0 billion of value opportunity. Mirati is a commercial-stage targeted oncology company. 

Marinus Announces Inducement Grants

Radnor, Pa.-based Marinus Pharmaceuticals announced the grant of inducement awards to four new employees. The board approved non-qualified stock options to purchase an aggregate of 57,185 shares of its common stock as inducements for the employees in accordance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4).

Couragene Co-Founders Awarded $40 Million NIH Grant

Couragene (North Brunswick, NJ) announced that its co-founders Yong-Hui Jiang and Jiangbing Zhou of Yale University, with Elizabeth Berry-Kravis of RUSH University, received a competitive UG3/UH3 grant from the NIH’s Somatic Cell Genome Editing (SCGE) program. The award is about $40 million, contingent on milestones.

Wistar HIV Researcher Wins 2 Grants to Investigate CAR T for HIV

The Wistar Institute’s Dr. Daniel Claiborne, a Caspar Wistar Fellow in Wistar’s Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center, received a Target Grant for $120,000 from amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, and a $65,000 grant from The Campbell Foundation. The grants will be used to evaluate CAR T cells for use against HIV.

Virion and Ocean Form Joint Venture for Infectious Diseases and Cancer

Virion Therapeutics (Philadelphia) and Ocean Biomedical (Providence, RI) entered a joint venture to accelerate and expand Virion’s clinical-stage program and pipeline for cancer and chronic infectious diseases. Virion initiated enrollment in the VRON-0200 trial for chronic hepatitis B virus infection as well as IND-enabling activities for its oncology program. Ocean is advancing immunotherapies for lung, brain and other cancers by targeting chitinase 3-like-1 expression (Chi3L1) with mono- and bi-specific antibodies.

Virpax Announces Research Extension with U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research

Virpax Pharmaceuticals (Berwyn, Pa.) announced that its cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research (USAISR) to evaluate Virpax’s Probudur has been extended to September 2024. Probudur is an injectable long-acting liposomal bupivacaine formulation injected at the wound site.

AstraZeneca Awards Funding to 8 Early-Career Scientists in 2^nd R&D Postdoc Challenge

AstraZeneca (Wilmington, Del.) announced eight winners of the 2023 R&D Postdoctoral Challenge. The award will fund their postdoctoral positions at one of the company’s strategic R&D centers in either Cambridge, UK, Gaithersburg, Md. or Boston, or Gothenburg, Sweden.

Coeptis Expands License Deal with University of Pittsburgh

Coeptis Therapeutics (Wexford, Pa.) expanded its exclusive license agreement with the University of Pittsburgh to include the SNAP-CAR technology platform in natural killer (NK) cells. This expands the original deal for SNAP-CAR T-cell, a “universal” CAR T technology platform to target multiple antigens simultaneously and possibly address a range of hematologic and solid tumors, including HER2-expressing cancer.

Kanvas Biosci Acquires Federation Bio Assets

Kanvas Biosciences (Princeton, NJ) acquired two active therapeutic programs, a microbial library, and IP from Federation Bio. The deal transitions Kanvas from a tech company to a full-stack therapeutics company with active clinical programs and a new cell banking facility in South San Francisco.

Helius Receives Letter of Intent from Quebec to Purchase 30 PoNS Devices

Helius Medical Technologies (Newtown, Pa.) received a letter of intent from the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services for the purchase of 30 Portable Neuromodulation Stimulator (PoNS) devices. This is part of an initiative to evaluate PoNS for treating patients with symptoms due to stroke.

In the Clinic

Ocugen Mucosal Vaccine Candidate Picked by NIH-NIAID Project NextGen for Clinical Trials

Ocugen (Malvern, Pa.) announced that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will run a trial comparing its mucosal vaccine candidate, OCU500, by two different mucosal routes, inhalation into the lungs and as a nasal spray. The company is developing a novel anti-viral mucosal vaccine platform initially targeting COVID-19 and flu.

BMS Presented New Zeposia Data on Long-Term MS Progression

Bristol Myers Squibb (Princeton, NJ) announced new data demonstrating that after eight years of follow-up, 76% of patients receiving Zeposia with relapsing multiple sclerosis (RMS) were free of six-month confirmed disability progression (CDP). The data also showed low rates of progression independent relapse activity (PIRA) and relapse-associated worsening (RAW).

Incyte Reports Positive 52-Week Vitiligo Data from Phase IIb Trial

Incyte (Wilmington, Del.) announced new 52-week data from its Phase IIb study of povorcitinib in adults with extensive nonsegmental vitiligo. The drug is an oral JAK1 inhibitor. Data demonstrated substantial total body and facial repigmentation across all treatment groups at Week 52.

Sun Pharma Presented Phase IV Data in Dry Eye Disease

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (Mumbai, India and Princeton, NJ) presented Phase IV data showing that Cequa (cyclosporine ophthalmic solution) 0.09% induces sustained improvement in dry eye disease. The drug demonstrated significant improvement in corneal fluorescein staining and in modified Symptom Assessment in Dry Eye (mSANDE) scores in patients with dry-eye disease whose disease was uncontrolled on Restasis.

BMS Presented 3-Year Data for Sotyktu in Plaque Psoriasis

Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) announced new 3-year results from the POETYK PSO long-term extension trial of Sotyktu (deucravacitinib) in adults with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. At Week 148, the clinical response rates were maintained and there were no increases in adverse events or series adverse events over time, with no new safety signals.

Onconova Presents Encouraging Cancer Treatment Data

Onconova Therapeutics (Newtown, Pa.) presented promising data for the use of rigosertib in patients with recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (RDEB) associated with advanced/metastatic squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). The data was presented in the Late Breaking News session at the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) in Berlin, Germany.

Annovis Announced Positive Interim Analysis in Alzheimer’s Study

Annovis Bio (Berwyn, Pa.) announced that the independent statistical group determined that its Phase II/III Alzheimer’s disease trial was sufficiently powered to continue as originally planned. There is no need for additional patients. The trial will enroll 320 mild to moderate AD patients who will receive 7.5, 15, 30 mg of buntanetap or placebo once per day. Buntanetap is an oral translational inhibitor of neurotoxic aggregating proteins (TINAPs). 

PMV Pharma Updated Phase I Results from Tumor Trial

PMV Pharmaceuticals (Princeton, NJ) updated Phase I results from its ongoing Phase I/II PYNNACLE trial that showed PC14586 achieved efficacy in heavily pretreated patients across multiple tumor types. The treatment was well tolerated with a favorable safety profile.

New Products

HR Pharma Expands TruCath Portfolio

HR Pharmaceuticals (York, Pa.) introduced two ready-to-use intermittent catheters, TruCath Swift and TruCath Oasis. Both are ready-to-use out of the package, no lubricant application or coating activation is required.

Research Roundup

CHOP Research: NICU Antibiotic Use Dropped in Past Decade

Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) published a research letter in JAMA Pediatrics showing that antibiotic use in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) decreased significantly over the past decade. The study analyzed data from almost 1.4 million infants from 735 NICUs between 2009 and 2021.

CHOP Research: Tracking Mitochondria from T Cells to Cancer Cells

Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) developed an algorithm called MERCI (Mitochondrial-Enabled Reconstruction of Cellular Interactions), which uses single-cell RNA sequencing data and computational tools to identify which cells in patient tumors samples receive mitochondria from T cells. Mitochondria can be shared between different types of cells through what are called tunneling nanotubes, which allow mitochondria to transfer from immune cells to cancer cells.

CHOP Research: Cryptic Viral Peptides Drive Immune Response in Flu A

It was generally understood that there were two major roles for the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). MHC-I displays peptide fragments of proteins from inside the cell on the cell surface, which causes cytotoxic T cells to respond; and MHC-II does the same thing for helper T cells. Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania identified an important role for non-classical MHC molecules that engage with a cryptic viral peptide originating from influenza A virus and drive much of the CD8 T cell response after infection.