05/12/2022?Medical & Biological Laboratories and Crown Bioscience Enter Joint Venture ~Providing Advanced Preclinical Services in Japan~

On June 2, 2022 JSR Corporation reported that Medical & Biological Laboratories (MBL) and Crown Bioscience, JSR Life Sciences companies, have formed a joint venture to further extend their preclinical services to Japanese customers (Press release, JSR, JUN 2, 2022, View Source [SID1234615399]). The new company named "Crown Bioscience & MBL", provides preclinical and translational services to biopharmaceutical customers in Japan. MBL is currently a distributor for Crown Bioscience and the establishment of the joint venture marks a significant milestone in the long-standing relationship between the two founding companies.

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The company, established in April 2022, is expected to start service operation from September 2022. For details, please refer to the announcements from Crown Bioscience.

Doma Raises RMB 950 Million Series A Financing to Incubate Innovative Life Sciences Companies

On June 1, 2022 Doma Biopharmaceutical reported the closing of a Series A financing round of RMB 950 million (Press release, Doma Biopharmaceutical, JUN 1, 2022, View Source [SID1234636146]). The investors included Biocytogen, China Life Private Equity Investment, PICC Capital, SDIC Venture Capital, Suzhou Industrial Park, Taiping Healthcare Fund, and CMB International. As the founding shareholders of Doma Pharmaceutical, the investors aspired to build the company into a China-based integrated incubator for sustained life sciences innovations by pooling cutting-edge technologies, outstanding talents, and longterm capital inputs.

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Doma was established in Suzhou BioBAY in September 2021 with a vision to develop innovative drugs and disruptive biotechnologies. The company has successfully incubated dynamic biotech companies with novel proprietary drug pipelines/biotechnologies, while giving birth to an industry cluster for innovative life sciences. That has been made possible by the company’s optimal integration of talents, technologies/products and capital on the shareholders’ robust open R&D service platform. As a fully integrated incubator for life science innovations, the company will empower incubatees with diverse.

"We are grateful to our founding shareholders for their contributions to the Series A financing, which has set the company in motion," said Dr. Huang Rui, Director and Chief Operating Officer of Doma. "The past decade has seen rapid progress in life sciences research in China and an increasing number of qualified and experienced high-caliber talents in the industry. That has given us the confidence to integrate science, industry, talent, and capital resources to build the company into a fully integrated incubation platform for life science innovations in China. On this platform, we will create a series of innovative and vibrant biotech companies that seek to address real clinical needs, identify market value, improve public health, and realize sustainable development by taking groundbreaking approaches. Going forward, Doma aims to incubate world-class companies based in China. That entails joint efforts with technology innovators, top talents, investors, and industrial partners to develop innovative target drugs, dual anti-ADC drugs, oncolytic viruses, cell therapies, pet drugs, diagnostic reagents, and AI products."

"We are honored to be a part in the co-investment for the establishment of Doma," said Dr. Shen Yuelei, Chairman of Biocytogen, one of the founding shareholders. "Biocytogen boasts world-leading technology platforms for gene editing, antibody drug discovery and screening, innovative animal model development, and clinical drug development, as well as the ability to develop new drugs throughout the process from early target validation to preclinical research and clinical development of pharmaceutical molecules. Besides, Biocytogen’s Project Integrum program and unique drug development platform will bolster Doma’s R&D capabilities, helping the company incubate more innovative and dynamic biotech.

"It is a trend inevitable for China to become a pharmaceutical powerhouse through rapid construction of a biopharma innovation incubator and a biopharma industry cluster with global influence, while platform companies have emerged as one of the key drivers to enhance the industrial capacity," said Jiang Li, Managing Director of China Life Private Equity Investment. "Doma is incubating new antibody drug companies with premier biopharma talents at home and abroad working on Biocytogen’s antibody drug development service platform and the unique Project Integrum platform. A bright future can be anticipated from its distinctive operating model that combines industrial incubation and drug pipeline development. We hope that our collaboration with Biocytogen and Doma will result in greater concentration and flow of advanced technologies, high-end talents, abundant capital, and other innovation factors, faster commercialization of scientific and technological findings, incubation of more new biotech companies, and globalization of local businesses. These outcomes will ultimately accelerate China’s bioeconomy growth and secure strategic advantages, while providing humanity with more innovative and effective pharmaceuticals."

"Life sciences is a subject that keeps exploring new ways to prolong life and cure illness, carrying the hopes and expectations of all mankind," said Shu Wanting, Managing Director of PICC Capital. "To embark on a novel industrial growth path, China must be an innovator rather than a follower, while being more patient and persistent along the way. We are very pleased to be one of the founding shareholders of Doma, standing ready to contribute to the company’s biotech industry cluster incubation by combining our extensive industry experience, top-tier talents, and long-term capital inputs with those of other shareholders. We hope that Doma will soon roll out a series of new products that will make a big difference in treating diseases and extending people’s lives.

Flagship Pioneering, a world-renowned biotech incubator, a biotech platform should be versatile within the same sector and able to quickly adapt successful R&D cases to succeeding R&D processes within the same sector. The more versatile a biotech platform is, the more functional and valuable it becomes. With its unique industry incubation system and Biocytogen’s Project Integrum resources, Doma has the potential to become an excellent biotech platform. We expect the company to become ‘China’s Flagship Pioneering’."

Theolytics’ £1M project with InnovateUK to develop a novel therapy for multiple myeloma patients

On June 1, 2022 Theolytics is a biotechnology company harnessing viruses to combat disease reported the company has been awarded a Biomedical catalyst grant by Innovate UK to progress a novel therapy for multiple myeloma patients (Press release, Theolytics, JUN 1, 2022, View Source [SID1234630918]).

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Multiple myeloma is an incurable blood cancer, for which cancer-killing (‘oncolytic’) viruses are an emerging therapy offering hope. The therapy selectively infects and kills cancer cells – targeting heterogeneous, systemic cancers based on their phenotype rather than molecular targets, providing the promise of durable remission and curative potential.

This grant will focus on translating Theolytics’ lead candidate to clinic-readiness. The work includes partnering with the University of Sheffield to investigate the efficacy of Theolytics’ lead candidate

in clinically representative, drug-resistant models of multiple myeloma. This project will further validate this novel therapy, positioning the lead oncolytic virus candidate for testing in Phase I clinical trials.

Margaret Duffy, Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder said: "The myeloma treatment landscape has changed considerably in recent years; despite some promising clinical results with BCMA targeted therapies, lasting remissions remain a challenge for many myeloma patients. Due to the unique mechanism of this oncolytic virus candidate, we wish to offer hope to those with advanced, refractory disease. This grant provides the opportunity to advance our candidate to the clinics and we are grateful to Innovate UK for their continued support of Theolytics’ work."

Michelle Lawson, Academic Collaborator, University of Sheffield said: "I am absolutely thrilled to be working in collaboration with Theolytics on this exciting project to further demonstrate the efficacy of their lead candidate in our preclinical models of myeloma, as subsequent in-patient use could ultimately lead to much-needed improvements in outcomes for myeloma patients with advanced disease."

Hangzhou DAC Biotechnology Announces a Collaboration and License Agreement with Janssen for the Development of Novel Antibody-Drug Conjugates

On June 1, 2022 Hangzhou DAC Biotechnology Co., Ltd. ("DAC Biotechnology") reported a collaboration and license agreement with Janssen Biotech, Inc., one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson ("Janssen") (Press release, Hangzhou DAC Biotech, JUN 1, 2022, View Source [SID1234618939]). Under the terms of the agreement, DAC Biotechnology will apply its innovative and proprietary antibody drug conjugate (ADC) platform to Janssen’s proprietary antibodies with the aim to develop novel ADC products against up to five targets. The negotiation and finalization of the agreement was facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation. DAC Biotechnology has also received an equity investment from Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc.

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"We are very proud to mark this important collaboration with Janssen," said Dr. Robert Yongxin Zhao, President and Chief Executive Officer of DAC Biotechnology. "After years of dedicated research and development, DAC technology has become a key player in the field of ADC innovation. Our advanced ADC platform, with abundant reserve of payload/linker pairs, conjugation technologies and CMC capabilities, enables us to build a deep pipeline of products, many of them being first-in-class ADCs. We are committed to bringing safe and efficacious medicines not only to patients in China, but also those around the world."

"The collaboration with Janssen is the very first collaboration milestone in our global roadmap. The combination of the license agreement and equity investment creates an exciting approach to progressing novel therapeutic innovations in overseas markets," Dr. Zhao continues.

With the aim to discover novel ADC products via license collaboration, DAC Biotechnology will fully leverage its intellectual properties and proprietary ADC platform, while Janssen will provide its expertise in proprietary antibodies, clinical development and global commercialization. Through the collaboration agreement, DAC Biotechnology is eligible to receive an upfront payment, cost reimbursement and milestone payments, plus royalties on worldwide sales for each selected product.

Lexicon Pharmaceuticals to Participate in the Jefferies 2022 Healthcare Conference

On June 1, 2022 Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: LXRX) reported that Lonnel Coats, Lexicon’s chief executive officer, will present at the Jefferies 2022 Healthcare Conference on Wednesday, June 8, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. ET (Press release, Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, JUN 1, 2022, View Source [SID1234616372]).

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A webcast of the event will be available in the "Events" section of the Lexicon website at www.lexpharma.com. An archived version of the webcast will be available on the website for two weeks.