Archive: Company News
Company News: NOWEL network established for the optimal care of lung cancer patients in Northern Germany
The Pius Hospital Oldenburg, the Institute of Haematopathology Hamburg and NEO New Oncology AG announced today the formation of NOWEL, the North-East-West Lung Network (Nord-Ost-West-Lunge, NOWEL, www.nowel.org). The objective of the network is to make area-wide care with the best available diagnostics and therapy accessible to lung cancer patients in Northern Germany.
At NOWEL, the region’s leading experts in the fields of oncology, pulmonology and pathology have joined forces in interdisciplinary and intersectoral cooperation to offer patients evidence-based, personalized cancer therapy of the highest scientific level. In doing so, NOWEL’s primary goal is to provide patients with close-to-home and timely diagnosis and treatment of their cancer. A main focus of NOWEL’s activities centers on health services research. With a comprehensive, quality-assured benefit analysis, NOWEL aims to actively contribute to improved diagnostic and therapeutic care concepts.
Company News: Lead Pharma Achieves First Milestone for Development of Autoimmune Diseases Treatments in Research Collaboration with Sanofi
– Company receives undisclosed milestone payment
Lead Pharma, a pharmaceutical company developing innovative medicines for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and cancer, today announced that it has achieved the first milestone under its research collaboration with Sanofi, triggering an undisclosed milestone payment. The collaboration aims to develop small molecules directed against the nuclear hormone receptor ROR gamma (t) for the treatment of a broad range of autoimmune disorders, including common diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease.
In February 2015, Lead Pharma and Sanofi announced a research collaboration and licensing agreement to discover, develop and commercialize small molecule therapies directed against ROR gamma (t), a key regulator of immune cells called T-helper 17 (Th17) cells. The current milestone payment follows an initial upfront cash payment at the start of the collaboration. Lead Pharma is eligible to receive further milestone payments and entitled to receive royalty payments on global sales from any resulting products. Financial details were not disclosed.
Company News: Curetis Announces New Supervisory Board of Curetis N.V.
Curetis B.V. [1] (“Curetis”), a developer of next-level molecular diagnostic solutions, today announced the composition of its supervisory board. William E. Rhodes, III, will be serving as chairman of Curetis’ supervisory board (the “Board”), while Mario Crovetto will serve as chairman of Curetis’ audit committee. Board members Dr. Werner Schaefer, Dr. Frank Muehlenbeck, Dr. Rudy Dekeyser, and Dr. Holger Reithinger have previously been members of the supervisory board of Curetis AG.
William Rhodes is a healthcare executive with more than 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry, and has been serving as an Operating Partner with Linden Capital Partners´ investment team since January 2013. During his 14-year career at Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD, 1998-2012), Mr. Rhodes was an Executive Officer and held several senior leadership positions, including roles as Worldwide President of BD Biosciences (2009-2011). He was responsible for BD’s corporate M&A activities as well as leading and growing operating companies. Furthermore, he founded BD Ventures, the venture capital arm of Becton, Dickinson and Co. Prior to Becton Dickinson, he held senior business development positions at Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer Inc. Mr. Rhodes also has served, among other roles, as President of The William-James Co. and has a track record of more than 20 successful acquisitions and divestitures. Mr. Rhodes holds a Master’s degree in International Business from Seton Hall University and a BSc degree from Cornell University.
Mario Crovetto has been working as an independent advisor on M&A and corporate projects, notably integrations, divestments and financing since 2011. From 1999 to 2011, he was the CFO of Eurand NV (Specialty Pharmaceuticals), which he took public on NASDAQ in 2007. From 1990 to 1999, he held various senior business positions at Recordati (Pharma-ceuticals), including VP of Corporate Development, Division Manager of Diagnostics and CFO. Prior to that, he worked in various positions at Montedison (Speciality Chemicals), Digital Equipment Corporation, Mobil and SIAR (Management Consulting). Mr. Crovetto holds a BSc in Economics from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, and a Master’s degree in Business Economics from Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
[1] Curetis B.V. will be converted into Curetis N.V.
Company News: NATURE paper describes new molecular markers for high-risk neuroblastoma
– Researchers from the University of Cologne and NEO New Oncology AG publish new findings on the importance of thorough molecular diagnosis in cancer –
Researchers from the University of Cologne and NEO New Oncology AG today jointly published in Nature the findings of an extensive genomic analysis of neuroblastoma, a malignant pediatric tumor of the sympathetic nervous system. In the most aggressive forms of this tumor, the researchers identified previously unknown genomic alterations leading to up-regulation of the telomerase reverse transcriptase gene (TERT). Overexpression of TERT is often associated with cancers and tumor formation. These findings may help to improve tumor diagnostics and prognosis, and may also lead to the development of novel therapeutic options for the most aggressive subgroup of this deadly pediatric disease.
In neuroblastoma, the most common cancer in infancy, half of the tumors either regress spontaneously or can be cured by limited therapy, while the other half is high-risk neuroblastoma, a tumor with a very unfavorable prognosis and resistance even to intensive treatment.
So far, only a limited number of molecular markers that define high-risk neuroblastoma at a genomic level have been described, among them amplifications of the MYCN oncogene and mutations of the transcriptional regulator ATRX. By genomically analyzing more than 200 tumor samples, the authors of the study discovered genomic rearrangements close to the telomerase reverse transcriptase gene (TERT) that occur in approximately one quarter of high-risk neuroblastoma patients and clinically correlate with a particularly poor outcome. Both MYCN amplification and TERT rearrangements massively increased expression of TERT as well as enzymatic telomerase activity. Additionally, it was shown that high-risk tumors, even without any genomic alterations in MYCN or TERT, were prone to exhibiting a lengthening of telomeres.
Taken together, these findings suggest that most high-risk neuroblastomas are affected by either TERT rearrangements, MYCN amplification, or ATRX mutations, all of which lead to telomere lengthening, thereby providing a molecular, mechanistic definition of this neuroblastoma subtype. By contrast, low-risk tumors are characterized by the absence of such alterations and by low TERT expression levels, which presumably renders the tumors unable to attain immortal proliferation.