On February 2, 2020 Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) reported that the Margie and Robert E. Petersen Foundation has contributed $25 million to establish an endowment supporting three of the hospital’s signature programs: the Cancer and Blood Disease Institute (CBDI), the Vision Center and Inpatient Rehabilitation Services (Press release, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, FEB 2, 2020, View Source [SID1234553750]).

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"This endowment expands the Petersen’s legacy of generosity by providing CHLA with a resource that will forever advance our mission to create hope and build healthier futures for children," says President and CEO Paul S. Viviano. "I am so grateful for this gift that will support a wide range of initiatives including research projects, technology upgrades, clinical care, key physician recruitment, capital projects, unreimbursed care and more."

The Margie and Robert E. Petersen Foundation, led by President GiGi Carleton, supports children’s health and well-being throughout Southern California, fulfilling the Petersen’s desire to care for the community by helping all children reach their full potential. Margie Petersen was a former CHLA Trustee, and both she and her husband Robert Petersen, founder and chairman of Petersen Publishing Co., were longtime supporters of the hospital. The Foundation has supported several CHLA programs and projects over the years, including an $8.5 million gift to open a state-of-the-art inpatient rehabilitation space in 2015, named the Margie and Robert E. Petersen Foundation Rehabilitation Center and honoring their sons Bobby and Richie Petersen.

"Through their transformative philanthropy and leadership, the Petersens dedicated their lives to helping children overcome obstacles of all kinds," says Alexandra Carter, CHLA Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer. "They would be proud to know that this gift will help save children from debilitating illnesses by helping one of the nation’s top children’s hospitals provide families and patients the multidisciplinary, family-centered care they need."

In recognition of this transformative gift, CHLA will be naming the main driveway at its 4650 Sunset Boulevard campus the Margie and Robert E. Petersen Entry Plaza, in honor of Mr. Petersen’s role as founding publisher of Hot Rod and Motor Trend magazines and founder of the Petersen Automotive Museum.

On February 1, 2020 Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRVS), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of precisely targeted oncology therapies with biomarker patient enrichment selection, reported that updated results from its Phase 1/1b clinical trial of CPI-818, the Company’s ITK-inhibitor, which were presented in an oral presentation at the 12th Annual T-Cell Lymphoma Forum in La Jolla, California, taking place January 30 to February 1, 2020 (Press release, Corvus Pharmaceuticals, FEB 1, 2020, View Source [SID1234553771]).

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"Our Phase 1/1b clinical trial of CPI-818, our selective covalent ITK inhibitor designed to address T-cell lymphomas, is enrolling well and continues to provide promising clinical data for patients with advanced, refractory forms of this cancer," said Mehrdad Mobasher, M.D., chief medical officer of Corvus. "To-date, the data demonstrates that the biology and pharmacology of ITK inhibition with CPI-818 has been as expected and the trial is proceeding according to plan. We are pleased to provide this update at the T-Cell Lymphoma Forum, a meeting dedicated to this difficult to treat family of cancers. We are now ready to advance the trial to higher drug doses where we will evaluate its activity in specific disease cohorts."

The CPI-818 Phase 1/1b study is currently enrolling patients with several types of advanced, refractory T-cell lymphomas, including peripheral T-cell lymphoma-not otherwise specified (PTCL-NOS), angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AITL), cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL) and other T-cell lymphomas. The study employs an adaptive, expansion cohort design to select the dose and evaluate the safety, pharmacokinetics (PK), target occupancy, biomarkers and efficacy of CPI-818. The initial phase of the trial is evaluating escalating doses in successive cohorts of patients in order to determine the optimum dose. A second phase will evaluate safety and tumor response to this optimum dose of CPI-818 in disease-specific patient cohorts that may be expanded based on early signs of efficacy. The study is enrolling patients at major medical centers in the United States, Australia and South Korea.

CPI-818 Phase 1/1b Clinical Trial Results at 12th Annual T-Cell Lymphoma Forum
The preclinical and early clinical data from the Phase 1/1b clinical trial of CPI-818 were presented by Dr. Mobasher in an oral presentation session at the T-Cell Lymphoma Forum. The data builds on preclinical and early clinical data from the first seven patients in the study presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) (Free ASH Whitepaper) 61st Annual Meeting, which took place in December 2019. The key updates from Dr. Mobasher’s presentation, which is titled "CPI-818, an Oral Interleukin-2-Inducible T-Cell Kinase Inhibitor. Pre-clinical Characterization and Interim Results of a Phase I/Ib Dose-Escalation Trial in Patients with Relapsed/Refractory T-Cell Lymphoma," included:

16 patients have been enrolled in the first four dose cohorts in the initial phase of the trial, receiving a 100 mg, 200 mg, 400 mg or 600 mg oral dose of CPI-818 two times per day, with no dose limiting toxicities and no grade 3 or 4 treatment related adverse events observed.
The median patient follow-up period is now three months, with 11 patients remaining on therapy. One patient with CTCL treated with the 200 mg dose of CPI-818 achieved a reduction in lymphadenopathy and improvement of PET scan imaging; another patient with CTCL receiving the 400 mg dose has exhibited improvement in cutaneous disease. These patients continue on therapy.
The results from the pharmacokinetic and occupancy studies for the first 12 patients have been in-line with expectations, with increasing target occupancy with higher doses based on available data from the 100 mg, 200 mg, and 400 mg doses. The maximum target occupancy has not yet been achieved in the first three dose cohorts, but the Company continues to anticipate that maximum target occupancy will be achieved in the 600 mg cohort, which was recently initiated.