This week's life sciences industry news includes new clients for a Philadelphia digital health company, additional details about a biopharmaceutical company's recent equity financing deal, promising data for an experimental cancer therapy, and more.
Here's the roundup:
Oncora Medical
The Philadelphia-based digital health company has doubled its client base by adding San Diego-based Scripps Health and UT Health San Antonio, both of which will use Oncora's software to improve physician documentation and enhance personalized cancer care.
Financial terms of the deal are being kept confidential.
Founded in 2014, Oncora has developed a platform that integrates big data and machine learning into radiation oncology. The company builds electronic health record-integrated software to enhance oncologists' workflow and documentation while also leveraging predictive models to enable personalized care.
“Our team has worked so hard over the five-plus years to build the Oncora software platform and I am so proud that our efforts are bearing fruit and that more patients will benefit from data-driven oncology care," said David Lindsay, the company's CEO and co-founder.
Oncora, which has 10 employees, also works with Houston-based MD Anderson Cancer Center and Northwell Health in New York. Lindsay said the company also has a pro bono version of its software licensed to a nonprofit pediatric cancer registry, which works with about two dozen cancer centers to collect data to "spur innovations" in cancer treatments for children and adolescents.
Joshua Asper, deputy chair of operations at the UT Health Mays Cancer Center in San Antonio, said Oncora's "value add" will be to streamline clinical documentation, improve revenue by aligning documentation with revenue cycle efforts, and enhance collaboration with referring physicians through the integration of electronic health record platforms such as MOSAIQ and EPIC.
Asper said Oncora's analytical software will support cancer center operations, research, and quality assurance.
PolyCore Therapeutics
Here are more details on the Philadelphia biopharmaceutical company's seed financing I reported on last month after PolyCore filed a notice with the Securities and Exchange Commission about a $4.7 million private stock sale.
PolyCore disclosed this week that its seed investment came from Xontogeny, a Boston-based life sciences accelerator, and Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania.
The company plans to use the funds to advance its lead compound, PCT-3012, which is designed to reduce motor impairment in patients with Parkinson’s disease.
More than 1 million Americans live with Parkinson’s disease, and the current standard of care for treating the symptoms is Levodopa. About half of the patients receiving Levodopa develop a tolerance to the therapeutic, which requires them to take higher doses more frequently. Often the increase in dosage can cause Levodopa-induced dyskinesia, which manifests as abnormal involuntary body motions that reduce patients’ quality of life.
"Concern around developing these involuntary, erratic motions of the face and body cause some patients to delay treatment,” said Chris Garabedian, CEO of Xontogeny. “We believe [PolyCore's experimental] therapeutic could substantially improve the lives of patients living with Parkinson’s disease by improving motor symptoms without the development of tolerance or dyskinesia.”
Kelly Beck, CEO of PolyCore, said the company is conducting preclinical studies for PCT-3012 which, if successful, will enable the company to seek approval from the Food and Drug Administration to begin testing the new drug candidate in human patients.
“As the global population continues to age, it is important that we continue to identify treatments that not only address the symptoms of [Parkinson's disease] but also do not create new side effects, like dyskinesias, which can be incredibly disruptive to a patient’s quality of life," Beck said.
Context Therapeutics
The Philadelphia-based women's oncology company presented "encouraging" preclinical data for its lead new drug candidate, extended-release onapristone (ONA-XR) during the American Association for Cancer Research's annual meeting in New Orleans.
Evan Dick, senior vice president of research and development at Context Therapeutics, said the data support that onapristone is a potent, specific progesterone receptor antagonist and a potentially "highly promising combination agent" with standard of care therapies, as well as with emerging therapies, for hormone positive tumors.
Context (NASDAQ: CNTX) is conducting mid-stage clinical trials testing the effectives of ONA-XR in breast, ovarian, and endometrial cancers. Preliminary data from those studies are expected later this year.
Quick hits
Malvern-based Neuronetics (NASDAQ: STIM) and Greenbrook TMS Inc. (NASDAQ: GBNH) of Toronto entered into a five-year commercial agreement which provides for a stronger collaborative relationship. Under the agreement, Greenbrook will purchase all of its new transcranial magnetic stimulation devices for on-label indications exclusively from Neuronetics, and promote the use of Neuronetics' NeuroStar system in Greenbrook’s TMS centers. In exchange, Neuronetics will provide joint education and marketing support, increased collaboration between the organizations, negotiated pricing terms, and other benefits. … Fort Washington-based Nabriva Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NBRV) enrolled its first patient in a Phase 1 clinical trial to assess the safety and pharmacokinetics of oral and intravenous Xenleta in adult patients with cystic fibrosis. Xenleta was approved as a treatment for community-acquired bacterial pneumonia in August 2019. … Chimeron Bio, a Philadelphia developer of self-amplifying RNA vaccines and therapeutics, has entered into a manufacturing agreement with FujiFilm Diosynth Biotechnologies.
