This week's roundup includes updates on a gene-editing company spun out of Temple University, a government partnership involving a biotech company based at a suburban Philadelphia college, and new board appointments at a trio of area life sciences companies. Here's the rundown:
Excision BioTherapeutics
The Philadelphia life sciences company has received Food and Drug Administration clearance to begin human clinical trials of its experimental CRISPR-based HIV therapy.
The therapy is based on gene-editing work done over the past seven years by researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. CRISPR, an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is a genetic engineering technology used for altering pieces of DNA to treat diseases.
Excision BioTherapeutics Inc., founded in 2015, collaborated with Temple on the development of CRISPR-based systems for the treatment of HIV. Excision, which has a licensing deal with Temple for the technology, will initiate and manage the clinical trial for the HIV therapy known as EBT-101.
“The clinical trials highlight a well-orchestrated succession of academic research findings from Temple to [a potential] treatment for people living with HIV-1 infection, which is an exciting development,” said Kamel Khalili, director of the Comprehensive NeuroAIDS Center at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine and the co-founder and chief scientific consultant for Excision BioTherapeutics.
Navrogen
The preclinical biotechnology company based on the campus of Cheyney University entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with researchers at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. The CRADA is focused on testing the ability of Navrogen's small molecule NK cell-activating agents to suppress SARS-COV-2 infections and the spread of Covid-19. NK cells, also known as natural killer cells, are a type of immune cell that can kill tumor cells or cells infected with a virus.
Luigi Grasso, chief scientific officer at Navrogen, said the company's small molecule NK cell activators offer a complementary approach to vaccines and viral replication inhibitors in combating infectious diseases, including Covid-19.
Board appointments
Three area life sciences companies announced board appointments:
Brian Di Donato joined the board of iEcure, a Philadelphia gene-editing startup company. Di Donato is chief financial officer and head of strategy at Immunocore, a late-stage biotechnology company. Prior to that he was senior vice president and chief financial officer at Achillion Pharmaceuticals.
William D. Humphries joined the board of PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: PHAS), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company with offices in Malvern and San Diego. Humphries is CEO of Isosceles Pharmaceuticals. Prior to that, he was president of Ortho Dermatologics and president and CEO of the North American business of Merz. PhaseBio also said Dr. Justin Klein has resigned from the company's board of directors.
Paul Buckman joined the board Helius Medical Technologies (NSDAQ: HSDT), a neurotech company based in Newtown. Buckman is president, North America, for LivaNova, a global medical technology company that develops devices that target neuromodulation and cardiovascular disease. Prior to joining LivaNova, Buckman was CEO of Conventus-Flower Orthopedics, a privately-held medical device company specializing in orthopedic and wound care products.
