On January 25, 2023 AnPac Bio-Medical Science Co., Ltd. (the "Company") (Nasdaq: ANPC), a biotechnology company with operations in the United States and China focused on early cancer screening and detection and a business-to-business food e-commerce company, reported that in December 2022 and January 2023, the Company signed definitive investment agreements with several third party investors (Press release, Anpac Bio, JAN 25, 2023, View Source [SID1234626626]). The investors agreed to purchase 29,714,279 newly issued Class A ordinary shares (1,485,714 American Depositary Shares or "ADSs") of the Company at a price of US$0.175 per ordinary share or US$3.50 per ADS (1:20 ADS-to-share ratio), for a total purchase price of US$5.2 million. The closing is expected to take place within 30 days after signing. Concurrently, for each Class A ordinary share purchased, the investors will receive two warrants with each warrant to purchase one Class A ordinary share at an exercise price of US$0.21 per ordinary share (2,971,428 ADS an at exercise price of US$4.20 per ADS). The warrants will be exercisable within 2 years from the date of issuance.

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The Company expects to use the proceeds for its business-to-business Asian food e-commerce and Asian food supply chain construction.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities of the Company.

On January 25, 2023 Evotec SE (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, MDAX/TecDAX, ISIN: DE0005664809; NASDAQ: EVO) reported that the Company has entered into a strategic collaboration and licence agreement with Janssen Biotech, Inc. ("Janssen"), one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson (Press release, Evotec, JAN 25, 2023, View Source [SID1234626582]). The collaboration focuses on the development of first-in-class targeted immune-based therapies for oncology, which will ultimately be commercialised by Janssen. The agreement was facilitated by Johnson & Johnson Innovation.

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The collaboration leverages Evotec’s integrated discovery and development capabilities and manufacturing optimisation processes, including an option for the GMP manufacture of the immune-based therapies. Evotec will collaborate closely with Janssen during the pre-clinical R&D phase while Janssen will assume full responsibility for the clinical development and commercialisation.

Besides research funding, Evotec is entitled to an undisclosed upfront payment, success-based research and commercial milestones exceeding US$ 350 m as well as tiered royalties on products resulting from the collaboration.

Dr Cord Dohrmann, Chief Scientific Officer of Evotec, commented: "We are very excited about this collaboration with Janssen. Novel immune-based therapies with disease-relevant, targeted mechanisms are expected to benefit large number of patients. Evotec is committed to leading the way in transformational innovation to treat and ultimately cure diseases of high unmet need."

On January 25, 2023 Iaso Therapeutics, a Michigan State University startup developing novel technologies for next-generation vaccines, reported that it recently closed the first tranche of the company’s $1.25M Series Seed Preferred round of financing (Press release, Iaso Therapeutics, JAN 25, 2023, View Source [SID1234626559]).

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Proceeds from the funding will be used to advance Iaso’s customizable drug delivery and vaccine platform based on bacteriophage mQβ to boost immune system responses against weakly immunogenic antigens.

Participating in the round was the Michigan Rise Pre-Seed III Fund, Red Cedar Ventures Pre-Seed Fund and Michigan-based angel investors. Iaso Therapeutics is also eligible to receive up to $125K in funding from the Michigan Small Business Development Center and Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s Emerging Technology Fund, leveraging a successful National Science Found Phase II SBIR grant in March 2022.

"Iaso Therapeutics has successfully supported the early development of our mQβ vaccine platform with NSF and NIH SBIR grants," said Robert Forgey, President and CEO of Iaso Therapeutics. "This funding will accelerate the development of this technology as we begin our journey."

Based in East Lansing, Michigan, Iaso Therapeutics was founded in 2018 by Dr. Xuefei Huang, Ph.D., utilizing carbohydrate-based vaccine chemistry technology research in partnership with Michigan State University. Iaso Therapeutics hired Forgey as the president and CEO who brings two decades of biotechnology start-up experience.

"It has been rewarding to follow the progress of the Iaso Therapeutics since its early inception at Michigan State University," said Jeff Wesley, Executive Director of Michigan Rise Pre-Seed III. "The company is developing a platform with the potential to create vaccines for both infectious diseases and cancers, but also with the potential to deliver therapeutics to target tissues. In addition, the company, over a short period of time, has amassed strong pre-clinical animal data and can point to initial success in getting vaccines to the clinic as proof of concept."

The mQβ carrier has been conjugated with various molecules, such as small molecules, sugars, peptides, proteins, polysaccharides and glycoproteins. Thus has the potential to be a widely used carrier for both human and animal vaccines.

"Iaso Therapeutics’ technology has substantial potential to be a new safe and highly efficient vaccine platform," said Don Parfet, Managing Director of the Apjohn Group LLC and Iaso Therapeutics investor. "I really like the team and am impressed by the progress that has been made under the support and oversight of Spartan Innovations and MSU Technologies."

The overall increase in infectious and noninfectious diseases, growing population and recent technological advancements in vaccines and enabling technologies create considerable scope for the overall vaccine market. The resurgence of vaccine preventable diseases and the emergence of new pandemics and immunization programs in emerging economies also heavily influence the global vaccine market.

Iaso Therapeutics expects to complete this Series Seed Preferred round of financing later this year.

On January 25, 2023 KSQ Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing therapies to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases using its proprietary, integrated discovery CRISPRomics platform, reported that Ono Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. ("ONO"), has acquired multiple research-stage DNA damage response (DDR) programs identified using KSQ’s CRISPRomics platform technology (Press release, KSQ Therapeutics, JAN 25, 2023, View Source [SID1234626565]). All the programs are novel and have the potential to become first-in-class therapies.

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"This acquisition of multiple research-stage oncology programs by ONO is further validation of the power of our platform to identify novel oncology targets and develop potential first-in-class programs," said Qasim Rizvi, Chief Executive Officer of KSQ. "This is an important transaction for KSQ, enabling us to focus on our other programs. We look forward to watching ONO’s progress as they advance these programs toward clinical studies."

"ONO appreciates the ability of KSQ’s CRISPRomics platform technology to discover novel therapeutic targets with high selectivity for cancer cells," said Toichi Takino, Senior Executive Officer / Executive Director, Discovery & Research of ONO. "Through this acquisition agreement, we expect that the programs acquired from KSQ will lead to the creation of innovative medicines that will help treat cancer patients."

Under the terms of the agreement, ONO will provide KSQ a double-digit million upfront and potential near-term milestone payments with potential long-term value into the triple-digit millions as well as royalties based on net sales.

On January 25, 2023 Zymeworks Inc. (Nasdaq: ZYME), a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel, multifunctional biotherapeutics, reported that management will participate in the following upcoming investor conferences (Press release, Zymeworks, JAN 25, 2023, View Source [SID1234626564]).

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Guggenheim Oncology Conference 2023. Zymeworks’ management will participate in one-on-one meetings on February 8th – 9th and a fireside chat on February 9th at 2:10 pm Eastern Time (ET) in New York, NY.
SVB Securities Global Biopharma Conference. Zymeworks’ management will participate virtually in one-on-one meetings on February 14th – 15th and present on February 14th at 10:40 am ET.
All presentations and webcasts will be available on Zymeworks’ website at View Source