On April 6, 2021 AstraZeneca reported that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), leveraging robust data and clinical best practices to create digital health solutions that address today’s most urgent healthcare challenges (Press release, AstraZeneca, APR 6, 2021, View Source [SID1234577635]). Catalyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic and a shared mission to improve care for patients with chronic illness, this novel partnership is focused on creating and clinically validating patient-centric digital health solutions and establishing a new standard of care for chronic illness management outside of a clinical setting.

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This collaboration is being led by the MGH Center for Innovation in Digital Healthcare (CIDH) and will utilize AstraZeneca’s new AMAZE disease management platform in studies for heart failure and asthma management. These first two studies will pilot AMAZE in a real-world setting with the goals of improving patient engagement, care-team communication and clinical outcomes while reducing healthcare costs.

Through remote monitoring, AMAZE identifies at-risk patients and delivers insights to the clinical care team at the point of care to improve the management of complex patient populations. The digital platform, including a patient app and clinician dashboard, is intended to speed up evidence-based clinical practice with the aim of continuously improving the standard of patient care and healthcare efficiency.

Ruud Dobber, Ph.D, Executive Vice President and President, BioPharmaceuticals Business Unit, said: "We believe the AMAZE disease management platform has the potential to transform the current healthcare delivery paradigm for patients around the world living with chronic diseases. We are incredibly proud to be working closely with Massachusetts General Hospital to utilize this digital platform to close gaps in patient care, ultimately leading to better outcomes."

"This extraordinary level of collaboration between an academic medical center and a pharmaceutical company, opens a pathway to innovative digital health solutions that place the patient at the center of care," said Peter L. Slavin, MD, President, Massachusetts General Hospital. "By embracing the tension of different perspectives and expertise, we can move faster and more efficiently while maintaining the highest levels of scientific rigor and clinical excellence. While there is no precedent for this type of deep relationship, we hope this alliance will serve as a model for future collaboration between pharma and healthcare providers."

Following the successful conclusion of the heart failure and asthma studies, AstraZeneca and Massachusetts General Hospital plan to expand the use of AMAZE across multiple chronic disease areas, reaching patients throughout the Mass General Brigham system, and beyond.

On April 6, 2021 Volastra Therapeutics reported it will collaborate with Microsoft to develop tools that help detect drivers of cancer metastasis (Press release, Volastra Therapeutics, APR 6, 2021, View Source [SID1234577634]). These unique digital pathology tools will accelerate the development of promising new therapies for cancer and help identify the patients most likely to benefit.

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"Metastasis is one of the biggest unsolved challenges in cancer treatment, but new insights into tumor biology from our founders have laid the groundwork for major advancements in this field," said Charles Hugh-Jones, M.D., Chief Executive Officer at Volastra. "We are excited to work with Microsoft to apply data science to the challenges of cancer research. The digital tools we develop will fuel our drug discovery efforts and bring new hope to people living with cancer."

"We have seen the tremendous promise of advanced computation in the fields of medical diagnostics and drug discovery," said Desney Tan, Ph.D., Managing Director, Microsoft Health Futures. "The collaboration with Volastra will lead to potential advances in the development of therapies to prevent and treat cancer metastasis. We look forward to continued collaboration with Volastra to deliver solutions for the computational life sciences community."

The teams will work together on algorithms to identify markers that correlate with tumor metastatic behaviors. The collaboration will develop automated machine learning tools capable of rapidly and accurately integrating insights across multiple datasets, including pathology slides and three-dimensional tumor-derived organoids.

On April 6, 2021 SQZ Biotechnologies (NYSE:SQZ), a cell therapy company developing novel treatments for multiple therapeutic areas, reported that management will be participating in multiple investor conferences in April 2021 (Press release, SQZ Biotech, APR 6, 2021, View Source [SID1234577633]). Armon Sharei, PhD, chief executive officer, will present a corporate overview at the 20th Annual Needham Virtual Healthcare Conference taking place April 12-15, 2021 and will participate in a cell therapy focused panel at the Canaccord Horizons in Oncology Virtual Conference on April 15, 2021. The company will also be hosting one on one meetings at both conferences.

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Needham Virtual Healthcare Conference
Presentation: Tuesday, April 13, 2021, 3:45pm EDT

Canaccord Horizons in Oncology Virtual Conference
Panel: Thursday, April 15, 2021, 1:00pm EDT

More information and the webcast for the presentation at Needham will be available on the Investors & Media section of the SQZ website. The webcast will be available for 90 days following the presentation.

On April 6, 2021 Avacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of innovative cancer therapies and diagnostics based on its proprietary Affimer and pre|CISION platforms, reported that it has entered into a global distribution agreement with ABCAM plc (AIM: ABC; NASDAQ: ABCM) to sell the Group’s recently developed SARS-CoV-2 research ELISA Affimer reagents (Press release, Avacta, APR 6, 2021, View Source [SID1234577632]).

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Avacta has developed Affimer reagents which can be used in a high performance ELISA laboratory test to detect the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein with high sensitivity and excellent specificity for the spike protein of the original strain of the virus and other dominant variants such as B117 ("Kent" strain) and D614G.

ABCAM is one of the world’s leading suppliers of high-quality biological reagents and kits which are used in a wide range of fields including drug discovery, diagnostics and basic research. Under the worldwide, non-exclusive distribution agreement, ABCAM will enable the global research community to access Avacta’s SARS-CoV-2 spike protein Affimer research reagents through its on-line catalogue. This will allow scientists around the world to perform the ELISA test in their own laboratories and support the global fight against the pandemic.

Dr Alastair Smith, Chief Executive of Avacta Group commented: "We are delighted that we have established a global route to market for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein Affimer reagents through ABCAM’s dedicated global commercialisation infrastructure.

As far as we are aware, our spike protein ELISA test is the most sensitive test of its kind and, in ABCAM, we have a world-leading partner capable of maximising the commercial potential of the Affimer reagents by making them globally available to scientists who are researching into the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

I look forward to further updating the market on progress across the Group in due course."

This announcement contains information which, prior to its disclosure, was considered inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 (MAR).

On April 6, 2021 Agenus (NASDAQ: AGEN), an immuno-oncology company with an extensive pipeline of checkpoint antibodies, cell therapies, adjuvants, and vaccines designed to activate immune response to cancers and infections, reported that Dr. Jennifer Buell, President and COO, Dr. Steven O’Day, Chief Medical Officer, and Dr. Dhan Chand, Scientific Director, Head of Drug Discovery, at Agenus, will participate in a webcast hosted by Dr. Matt Phipps of William Blair on Saturday, April 10, 2021 at 10:30 a.m. ET (Press release, Agenus, APR 6, 2021, View Source [SID1234577631]).

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Dr. Steven O’Day will review abstracts presented at AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) 2021 featuring AGEN1181 and balstilimab, including objective responses observed in the ongoing Phase 1/2 trial, clinical benefits seen in underserved patient populations, and how they may inform the path forward for continued development.

Dr. Jennifer Buell and Dr. Dhan Chand will also be available to discuss the Fc-engineering driving AGEN1181’s enhanced activity, and how the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) presentations support AGEN1181’s place in the Agenus pipeline, alone and in combination with other immune-focused anti-cancer mechanisms.

Registration for the webinar can be done in advance at View Source

A replay will be available after the call on the Events & Presentations page of the Agenus website at View Source