This week's Philadelphia-area life sciences news includes a Wayne biopharmaceutical company hiring a new CEO; a cancer drug partnership that targets Canada, Central Eastern Europe and Israel; and an upgrade for a medical device used to treat depression.
Here's the roundup:
NFlection Therapeutics
The clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel drug candidates for rare genetic disorders appointed William Hodder as CEO.
Hodder has more than 30 years of management, sales and product development experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. He was most recently chief business officer at Escient Pharmaceuticals.
He takes over the CEO job from Chris Powala, who retired from day-to-day operations at Wayne-based NFlection but will remain as a member of the company's board of director.
NFlection's lead new drug candidate, NFX-179, is in early-stage testing as a treatment for cutaneous neurofibromatosis type 1, a condition characterized by changes in skin coloring or pigmentation and the growth of tumors along nerves in the skin, brain, and other parts of the body. Neurofibromatosis type-1 afflicts an estimated one in 3,000 people, with the symptoms ranging from mild lesions to functional impairment.
The company is also expanding its management team, naming Gerd Kochendoerfer as chief operating officer, Libbie Mansell as senior vice president of global regulatory affairs and quality assurance, and Patrice Horwath as vice president of clinical operations.
Immunocore
The British biotechnology firm that has its U.S. headquarters in Conshohocken entered into an exclusive multi-regional agreement with Medison Pharma Ltd. of Israel.
Under the agreement, the companies will work together to seek regulatory authorization for, and commercialize, Immunocore’s treatment for patients with metastatic uveal melanoma — a rare type of cancer that affects the eye — in Canada and 20 markets across Central Eastern Europe and Israel.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Immunocore (NASDAQ: IMCR) has filed a biologics license application for the treatment, known as tebentafusp, in the United States and Europe.
The company is developing a novel class of T cell receptor bispecific immunotherapies designed to treat a broad range of diseases, including cancer, infection and autoimmune disease.
Neuronetics
The Malvern medical device company released the latest evolution of its NeuroStar Advanced Therapy system, which uses transcranial magnetic stimulation to treat major depressive disorder.
Among the equipment and features included in the update is an improved motor threshold algorithm, called Fast MT, which reduces the number of steps to determine the recommended motor threshold level — a key treatment setting. Another addition is SoftStart, which allows clinicians to easily add or remove a sequence of pulses during a treatment session to ramp to the prescribed treatment level.
In addition, Neuronetics (NASDAQ: STIM) added a feature to TrakStar, its patient outcomes reporting system, that enables medical offices to reduce staff time and gather clinical data from patients they wouldn’t otherwise receive, by scheduling automated patient questionnaires.
Quick hits
Philadelphia gene therapy company SwanBio Therapeutics announced new preclinical efficacy and safety data that supports the potential of the company’s lead program, SBT101, as a disease-modifying treatment for adrenomyeloneuropathy, an inherited condition that causes spinal cord dysfunction. … Paratek (NASDAQ: PRTK), a Boston biopharmaceutical firm that has large operations in King of Prussia, enrolled the first patient in its Phase 2 study testing the effectiveness of Nuzyra, its new drug candidate being developed to treat nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease. There is no FDA-approved therapy for the rare condition.
