On December 20, 2021 McKesson Corporation (NYSE: MCK) reported that it has entered into an agreement to sell its Austrian business to Quadrifolia Management GmbH ("Quadrifolia") (Press release, McKesson, DEC 20, 2021, View Source [SID1234597496]). The transaction includes the sale of McKesson Austria’s Herba Chemosan Apotheker-AG, together with Sanova Pharma GesmbH. The transaction is expected to close in fiscal 2022, subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of required regulatory approvals.

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"Today’s transaction marks another milestone in advancing McKesson’s intent to streamline the portfolio and prioritize investments in areas where we have deep expertise and are central to our long-term growth strategy. We are making good progress in executing our strategy to exit Europe and continue to evaluate suitable exit alternatives for our businesses in Norway and Denmark," said Brian Tyler, chief executive officer, McKesson.

Quadrifolia will be conducting a management buyout which will see the existing management of the Austrian business buy all of the Herba Chemosan Apotheker-AG and Sanova Pharma GesmbH, backed by Invest AG. Invest AG has a solid track record of backing businesses in Austria over 25 years and will provide the new owners with further strength to fuel innovation and competition.

On December 20, 2021 Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE: PLTR), a leading builder of operating systems for the modern enterprise, and Dewpoint Therapeutics ("Dewpoint"), the leading biomolecular condensates company, reported a partnership for Palantir’s Foundry platform to help power Dewpoint’s efforts to discover treatments and cures for the most challenging diseases (Press release, Dewpoint Therapeutics, DEC 20, 2021, View Source [SID1234597495]).

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Palantir Foundry will help to enable researchers at Dewpoint to further their understanding of condensates biology by analyzing lab data along with other data sources, including data from the published literature and databases, to identify new compounds and therapeutic approaches.

Dewpoint will also use Foundry as the primary platform for its centralized knowledge repository, helping it contextualize its experimental results and prioritize the most viable outcomes. This multi-year agreement marks one of Palantir’s most comprehensive partnerships with a biotechnology company.

Palantir Foundry is designed to integrate disparate and siloed information sources to lead to data-driven analysis and decision making. It allows users to track lineage across systems, making it particularly suited for work in life sciences and the biotechnology sector, where data sources come from several unique and separate systems.

At Dewpoint, Foundry will be able to work seamlessly with the existing systems in its laboratories to provide researchers with a comprehensive foundation for exploration and analysis.

"We think Dewpoint is changing the way the world approaches drug design by exploring new frontiers of disease biology, requiring a game changing solution that goes beyond just cloud and infrastructure to drive their R&D and scale with their vision as they grow," said Lalarukh Haris Shaikh, Palantir’s Head of Biotech. "We are proud to partner with Dewpoint and share their passion of working on one of the most exciting translational medicine approaches of our time."

Foundry will help researchers make decisions around compound and target viability and streamline experiments and automate analysis by creating a digital twin of the research environment. One concrete example of Foundry’s use at Dewpoint Therapeutics is the expansion of the data foundation to include advanced genetic analysis for disease association and correlation with condensate content, empowering future discoveries.

"Key to our approach has been creating a seamless connection between our wet-lab and dry-lab capabilities, with machine learning and AI at the center. Foundry has provided us with a solid foundation for us to fully connect and operationalize our entire lab to enterprise and enable the discovery and development of new drugs," said Dewpoint CEO Ameet Nathwani.

About Biomolecular Condensates

Biomolecular condensates, formed through a process called phase separation, are membraneless droplets inside cells that facilitate molecular interactions and help cells perform vital functions. Condensates have been shown to play a critical role in key biological processes and in serious, intractable diseases across areas including neurodegeneration, cancer, inflammation, infectious disease, metabolic disease, and rare genetic disorders. The first condensates were observed more than 100 years ago. It is only in the last dozen years, though, that scientists—including Dewpoint founders Tony Hyman of the Max Planck Institute in Dresden and Rick Young of the Whitehead Institute—have begun to understand the dynamic nature and function of condensates. Dewpoint develops drugs that exploit this biology.

On December 20, 2021 TTC Oncology ("TTC" or the "Company"), an early-stage biotech company, reported that preparing to enter phase 2 clinical trials, is innovating safer solutions for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer, whose mission is to develop and bring to market a novel, small-molecule therapy to address unmet needs of breast cancer patients, reported the launch of its equity crowdfunding campaign on WeFunder with an initial investment of $100,000 (Press release, TTC Oncology, DEC 20, 2021, View Source [SID1234597494]).

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"We are thrilled to be launching this equity crowdfunding campaign, which is providing bridge financing for us as we plan for and fundraise for our phase 2 clinical trial. The trial will include validation of biomarker that would predict benefit from TTC-352 therapy, as well as provide signal of activity versus therapy of physician’s choice," said Arkadiusz (Arek) Z. Dudek, MD, PhD, TTC Oncology’s President and Chief Executive Officer.

Lead investor, Dr. William T. Beck, Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology and Molecular Genetics, University of Illinois at Chicago, stated, "I decided to invest in TTC Oncology because I see the enormous potential of the breast cancer drug being developed by this company."

TTC Oncology has opened an equity crowdfunding campaign on WeFunder as bridge financing to support its larger fundraising effort to further develop its novel therapy targeting estrogen receptor positive metastatic breast cancer after failure of hormonal treatment. Potential investors are invited to visit the WeFunder page for investment details.

Highlights of TTC-352:

TTC previously raised over $6 million to fund its phase 1 clinical trial with humans, which produced encouraging data. This study showed early signs of efficacy with prolonged disease control for up to 309 days;
The drug provides a non-toxic, novel mechanism of action therapy for hormone resistant of breast cancer;
The delivery mechanism is a safe and well tolerated oral capsule therapy ideal for late-stage cancer patients;
The intellectual property is patent protected until 2033;
Exhibits a biomarker that predicts benefit from TTC-352 therapy; and
Provides synergistic activity with PI3K inhibitors.
TTC Oncology plans to present its phase 2 clinical trial plans at the Biotech Showcase, January 10-19 in San Francisco. The Company will be available for virtual presentation should conditions permit. Additionally, the Company will be participating in the BIO partnering event at the 2022 JP Morgan Healthcare Conference.

To schedule a meeting with management, please contact Klara Czobor, Director of Development, TTC Oncology.

On December 20, 2021 CG Oncology, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing oncolytic immunotherapies for patients with advanced cancer, reported it has triggered the first development milestone payment under its licensing agreement with Kissei Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. for its oncology immunotherapy CG0070 for Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other Asian countries with the exception of China (Press release, CG Oncology, DEC 20, 2021, View Source [SID1234597493]).

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CG Oncology will receive a $10 million cash payment with the dosing of the first patient in Japan in the Phase 3 study (BOND3) for CG0070 as monotherapy for the treatment of patients with Non-Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer (NMIBC) unresponsive to Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG).

The goal of BOND3, an ongoing global Phase 3 trial which will enroll 110 patients, is to evaluate the safety and efficacy of CG0070 as a monotherapy for the treatment of NMIBC unresponsive to BCG.

More information about the study can be found at www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04452591).

On December 20, 2021 Perimeter Medical Imaging AI, Inc. (TSX-V:PINK)(OTC:PYNKF) (FSE:4PC) ("Perimeter" or the "Company"), a medical technology company driven to transform cancer surgery with ultra-high-resolution, real-time, advanced imaging tools to address high unmet medical needs, reported the first commercial installation of its flagship Perimeter S-Series OCT system at a North Texas hospital (Press release, Perimeter Medical Imaging AI, DEC 20, 2021, View Source [SID1234597492]).

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Perimeter S-Series is a novel medical imaging system that uses Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) to provide clinicians with cross-sectional, real-time margin visualization (1-2 mm below the surface) of an excised tissue specimen across a variety of tissue types.

Jeremy Sobotta, Perimeter’s Chief Executive Officer stated, "We are extremely pleased to announce the first commercial installation of our Perimeter S-Series OCT system. This meaningful validation of our ‘go-to-market’ strategy is an historic event for the Perimeter team, our shareholders, the physicians with whom we collaborate, and the patients in their care. By enhancing a surgeon’s ability to visualize margins and microscopic tissue structures during a procedure, we believe our ground-breaking imaging technology will allow for optimal intraoperative decisions that increase the precision of surgeries."

Steve Sapot, Perimeter’s Chief Commercial Officer added, "This installation of our Perimeter S-Series OCT device marks an important milestone achieved by our commercial team, who are connecting with innovators in healthcare institutions across the U.S. Our market development activities continue to accelerate and include extensive training and support for physicians. We are confident that this margin visualization technology will give surgeons added clarity to make better informed decisions real-time during a procedure."

About Perimeter S-Series OCT
Cleared by the FDA with a general tissue indication, Perimeter is bringing its S-Series Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) system to leading surgeons in hospitals across the U.S., providing cross-sectional images of tissues down to 2mm depth, with 10x higher image resolution than standard x-ray and ultrasound. Perimeter S-Series OCT gives physicians the ability to visualize microscopic tissue structures at the point-of-care – during the primary surgery compared to days later when pathology reports are available – which has the potential to result in better long-term outcomes for patients and lower costs to the healthcare system.