FarmaKology Newsletter - Issue #50

Jun 19, 2020

Today's Startup

SenseUp

SenseUp is a team of six Postdocs and four engineers with comprehensive experience in all aspects of microbial strain and fermentation process development. SenseUp started five years ago as spin-off from the Institute for Biotechnology at Forschungszentrum Jülich. After years of systematic technology-development funded by the Helmholtz community and the BMBF initiative GO-Bio, we closed our seed-financing round and are now working with global players from the feed-, food, flavors- and pharmaceutical industry to construct or optimize superior production strains or to identify new biocatalysts.

News

Seattle Genetics Announces Initiation of Phase 1 Clinical Trials for Two Novel Antibody-Based Drug Candidates

Seattle Genetics, Inc. today announced dosing of the first patient in a phase 1 clinical trial evaluating investigational agent SEA-TGT, also known as SGN-TGT, an anti-TIGIT antibody for patients with solid tumors and lymphomas. TIGIT (T-cell immune receptor with Ig and ITIM domains) is an inhibitory immune receptor that is emerging as a clinically relevant immuno-oncology target. SEA-TGT is a non fucosylated human IgG1 antibody that uses the Company’s proprietary Sugar Engineered Antibody technology.

Noxopharm to begin COVID-19 clinical trial for Veyonda

Drug developer Noxopharm is set to kick off a phase one clinical trial to test its Veyonda drug's ability to treat COVID-19 patients in Europe. Veyonda was originally created as an anti-cancer drug, but it was soon revealed that the product can treat some severe respiratory conditions relating to septic shock. As it happens, these conditions were identified as key issues for critical-condition COVID-19 sufferers, causing Noxopharm to throw its hat in the ring to find a coronavirus treatment. The company is now progressing the NOXCOVID clinical trial in Europe. The key purpose of the first phase of the trial is to confirm the safety and proof-of-principle of Veyonda.

BeiGene Announces Acceptance of a Supplemental New Drug Application for Tislelizumab in Combination with Chemotherapy in First-Line Advanced Non-Squamous Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer in China

BeiGene, Ltd. , a commercial-stage biotechnology company focused on developing and commercializing innovative molecularly-targeted and immuno-oncology drugs for the treatment of cancer, today announced that the Center for Drug Evaluation of the China National Medical Products Administration has accepted a supplemental new drug application of BeiGene’s anti-PD-1 antibody tislelizumab in combination with chemotherapy for first-line treatment of patients with advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer .

NIH opens COVID-19 big data hub to researchers

The National Institutes of Health launched a secure, cloud-based research hub that will apply machine learning to a massive clinical COVID-19 dataset to inform best practices for resource allocation, drug discovery and treatment options.The data platform is part of NIH’s National COVID Cohort Collaborative, or N3C, and addresses the lack enough standardized clinical data for researchers to learn how to direct COVID-response efforts and treat patients. The rapid aggregation and harmonization of clinical, laboratory and diagnostic data from hospitals and health care plans will support big data analyses of the virus and help identify effective interventions.