On January 4, 2022 4D pharma plc (AIM: DDDD, NASDAQ: LBPS), a pharmaceutical company leading the development of Live Biotherapeutic products (LBPs), a novel class of drug derived from the microbiome, reported that share options ("Options") have been granted to certain executive directors and members of the senior management team of the Company to acquire a total of 7,278,958 ordinary shares of 0.025p each ("Ordinary Shares") in the Company under the 4D Pharma plc Long Term Incentive Plan with an exercise price of 53.6 pence, being the closing mid-price on 31 December 2021 (Press release, 4d Pharma, JAN 4, 2022, View Source [SID1234598193]). Further details are set out in the table below. The Company may opt to issue ADSs rather than Ordinary Shares upon exercise, in accordance with the 8:1 ratio of Ordinary Shares to ADSs.

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In order to attract and retain personnel necessary to promote the success of the Company for the benefit of its members as a whole, the Company’s Board of Directors instructed that an external, independent benchmarking exercise should be undertaken to ensure that the Company’s remuneration of its employees was comparable to that of its Nasdaq-listed peer group.

Factoring in the results of this benchmarking exercise, and also taking into account that since formation of the Company, no company-wide equity awards had been made previously (including in relation to executive board directors), the Company decided to award share options to all qualifying employees. On 17 December 2021, options were granted to such employees to acquire a total of 7,520,152 Ordinary Shares with an exercise price of 52.35 pence, being equal to the closing mid-price on the date of grant. Together with the 7,278,958 Options granted today, a total of 14,799,110 Options have been granted, representing 8.21 per cent. of the Company’s issued share capital.

The Options awarded today vest in equal parts annually over a period of four years, beginning on 1 June 2022, save for John Doyle where vesting starts from 3 January 2023, and are exercisable over a period of 10 years from the date of grant.

The information set out below is provided in accordance with the requirements of Article 19(3) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation No 596/2014.

On January 4, 2022 TG Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: TGTX), reported that its existing term loan facility agreement with Hercules Capital, Inc. (NYSE: HTGC), has been amended to increase the size of the facility to $200 million, with $70 million funded at closing (Press release, TG Therapeutics, JAN 4, 2022, View Source [SID1234598168]). Michael S. Weiss, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of TG Therapeutics stated, "We are pleased to announce the expansion of our term loan facility with Hercules Capital and the immediate draw of $70 million. Hercules has been a great partner of ours, and we believe this expansion provides us with the financial flexibility we need in the short-term. With the funds immediately drawn we strengthened our year-end 2021 balance sheet and believe we are now positioned well financially."

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Michael Dutra, Managing Director at Hercules Capital shared, "Hercules is excited to continue and expand our partnership with TG Therapeutics as they advance their pipeline and work to bring their treatments to patients. The new increased commitment from Hercules exemplifies our ability to be long-term capital partners to our portfolio companies and reflects our dedication to financing innovative life sciences companies through development and into commercialization."

Under the terms of the amendment, the size of the term loan facility was increased to $200 million, with $70 million available and drawn at closing on December 30, 2021. The remaining $130 million may be drawn at the Company’s option, in three subsequent tranches. The first tranche is available upon U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA)/ Biologics License Agreement (BLA) for the combination of ublituximab and umbralisib (referred to as "U2") for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the second tranche is available upon FDA approval of the BLA for ublituximab for the treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (RMS), and the third tranche is available to fund future initiatives, subject to the approval of the Hercules Investment Committee.

Additional details of the loan amendment will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Form 8-K.

On January 4, 2022 Rubius Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: RUBY), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that is biologically engineering red blood cells to create an entirely new class of cellular medicines called Red Cell Therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases, reported Pablo J. Cagnoni, M.D., president and chief executive officer, will present at the virtual 40th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on Wednesday, January 12, 2022, at 8:15 a.m. ET (Press release, Rubius Therapeutics, JAN 4, 2022, View Source [SID1234598166]).

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A live audio webcast will be available within the Investors & Media section of the Rubius Therapeutics website. An archived replay will be accessible for 30 days following the event.

On January 4, 2022 Geron Corporation (Nasdaq: GERN), a late-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of treatments for hematologic malignancies, reported that John A. Scarlett, M.D., Geron’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, will present a company overview at the H.C. Wainwright BioConnect Conference (Press release, Geron, JAN 4, 2022, View Source [SID1234598162]).

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The pre-recorded company presentation will be available beginning at 7 a.m. ET / 4 a.m. PT on January 10, 2022 using the following link: View Source and will also be available on the Investor Relations section of Geron’s website under Events. Following the presentation, the webcast will be archived and available for replay for a period of 30 days.

On January 4, 2022 Harbour BioMed ("HBM", HKEX: 02142) reported that, its next generation anti-CTLA-4 fully human heavy-chain only antibody (HCAb), HBM4003, has completed the first dosing of first patient in two phase I trials for the treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and other solid tumors, as well as the treatment of advanced neuroendocrine tumor/neuroendocrine carcinoma (NET/NEC) and other solid tumors (Press release, Harbour BioMed, JAN 4, 2022, View Source [SID1234598158]). These clinical studies aim to assess the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics, and preliminary efficacy of HBM4003 in combination with toripalimab (PD-1 antibody) in patients with HCC, NET/NEC and other solid tumors.

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HBM4003 has already received an IND approval from the U.S. FDA, IND approvals from the China NMPA and the clinical trial approval from the Australia Institutional Review Board (IRB). The Company is proceeding multiple clinical trials for HBM4003 monotherapy and combination therapy across the world. HCC and NET/NEC are among the first wave of such indications.

About HBM4003

HBM4003 is a fully human anti-CTLA-4 monoclonal heavy chain only antibody (HCAb) generated from Harbour Mice. By enhancing antibody-dependent cell cytotoxicity (ADCC) killing activity, HBM4003 has demonstrated significantly improved depletion specific to high CTLA-4 Treg cells in tumor tissues. The potent anti-tumor efficacy and differentiated pharmacokinetics with durable pharmacodynamic effect presents a favorable product profile. This novel and differentiated mechanism of action has the potential to improve efficacy while significantly reducing the toxicity of the drug in monotherapy and combo-therapy.

About Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC)

Liver cancers are the fourth most common cause of cancer-related death and rank sixth in terms of incident cases worldwide. On the basis of annual projections, the World Health Organization estimates that more than 1 million patients will die from liver cancer in 2030.1 Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)2 is the most common form of liver cancer and accounts for ~90% of cases. The majority of HCC occur in patients with underlying liver diseases, mostly as results of hepatitis B or C virus (HBV or HCV) infection or alcohol abuse. Systemic therapies are recommended for advanced stage of HCC, including inhibitors of multiple kinases and immune-based therapies, with increased median survival of 10.6~15.6 months.1 Although the clinical management of advanced stage of HCC has improved in the past 10 years, there is still high unmet medical needs to explore new, effective and life-prolonged therapies for HCC.

About Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (NEN, including NET and NEC)

NEN is a neoplasm that arise from neuroendocrine cells. There are two fundamentally different groups of NEN: well-differentiated, low-proliferating NEN, called neuroendocrine tumor (NET) and poorly differentiated, highly proliferating NEN, called neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC). NEN can occur almost everywhere in the body but are most common in the gastrointestinal tract, the pancreas, and the lungs.3 Surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy and a variety of drug treatments are common therapies for patients with NET/NEC. Prognosis is worse in metastatic tumors, with the 5-year survival rate about 4.7% in metastatic gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine cancer (GEP-NEC).4 Consequently, there is still high unmet medical needs to explore new, effective and convenient therapies for NET/NEC.