On April 7, 2021 Vincerx Pharma, Inc. (Nasdaq: VINC), a biopharmaceutical company aspiring to address the unmet medical needs of patients with cancer through paradigm-shifting therapeutics, reported that it will be hosting a key opinion leader (KOL) meeting on bioconjugation and CDK9 inhibitors for the treatment of hematologic and solid tumors on Friday, April 16, 2021 at 12:00 PM ET (Press release, Vincerx Pharma, APR 7, 2021, View Source [SID1234577673]).

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The event will feature presentations by KOLs Brian Druker, M.D., Knight Cancer Institute, and Anthony W. Tolcher, M.D., NEXT Oncology. Dr. Tolcher will discuss tackling normal tissue toxicity from antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and Dr. Druker will discuss CDK9 in hematologic malignancies. Drs. Druker and Tolcher will be available to answer questions following the formal presentations.

Vincerx’s management team will discuss its poster titled, "A novel small molecule drug conjugate -αvβ3 integrin antagonist linked to a cytotoxic camptothecin derivative- for the treatment of multiple cancer types," which will be presented at the upcoming American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) Annual Meeting, as well as the Company’s bioconjugation platform. Vincerx’s preclinical bioconjugation platform seeks to address the current limitations of small-molecule and antibody-drug conjugates in oncology and consists of VIP236, a small molecule drug conjugate (SMDC) targeting advanced and metastatic cancer, as well as VIP943 and VIP924, two ADCs targeting hematologic tumors.

KOLs
Brian Druker, M.D., is the director of the Knight Cancer Institute, associate dean for oncology of the OHSU School of Medicine and the JELD-WEN Chair of Leukemia Research. His research is focused on translating the knowledge of the molecular pathogenesis of cancer into specific therapies and investigating the optimal use of these molecularly targeted agents. He performed preclinical studies that led to the development of imatinib (Gleevec) for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and then spearheaded the highly successful clinical trials of imatinib, which led to FDA approval of the drug in record time. This work changed the life expectancy of patients with CML from an average of 3 to 5 years to a 95% five-year survival and has resulted in a paradigm-shift in cancer treatment from non-specific chemotherapy to highly targeted therapeutic agents. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences and, among numerous awards, is the recipient of the 2009 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, the 2012 Japan Prize in Healthcare and Medical Technology and the 2019 Sjöberg Prize.

Anthony W. Tolcher, M.D. is CEO and Founder of NEXT Oncology, San Antonio and Austin, Texas, Phase I group that seeks to transform early clinical trials. NEXT Oncology’s mission is to accelerate the next breakthrough medicines for cancer and the vision is to be the most successful and respected Phase I program in oncology research. Dr. Tolcher served as President and Co- Founder of START LLC from 2009- 2018, one of the world’s largest Clinical Phase I and early drug development operations in cancer medicine with 5 locations in San Antonio Texas; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Madrid Spain; and Shanghai China.

Dr. Tolcher is a medical oncologist who has over 25 years’ experience in early drug development and clinical trials. He has been involved in many of the initial phase I studies of new agents that subsequently were FDA approved for the treatment of cancer including pembrolizumab (Keytruda), copanlisib (Aliqopa), trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla), regorafenib (Stivarga), liposomal vincristine (Marqibo), cabazitaxel (Jevtana), carfilzomib (Kyprolis), gefitinib (Iressa), erlotinib (Tarceva), and eribulin (Halaven). He is currently the principal investigator on 40 phase I clinical studies, is a reviewer for the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, and Annals of Oncology. He has chaired the Developmental Therapeutics Review Committee for the American Association of Clinical Oncology Annual Scientific Program. Dr. Tolcher has over 100 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals including Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Clinical Cancer Research, as well as an author of nine book chapters