PHARMA TECH
PR Newswire | January 09, 2024
AION Labs, the first-of-its-kind venture studio spearheading the adoption of AI technologies and computational science to solve therapeutic challenges, announced today a new strategic partnership with Amiti Ventures, one of the leading early-stage venture capital firms in Israel. The partnership further strengthens the alliance of global leaders in pharma, biotech, and technology investment, expanding its offering as a venture studio and partner for new startups.
"With a proven track record of identifying the best teams for the mission and investing early in the most innovative deep tech startups that shape the future, Amiti Ventures will bring important complementary capabilities and expert investor knowledge to the AION Labs partnership," said Mati Gill, CEO of AION Labs. "We thank Amiti for its vote of confidence in our model of innovation for groundbreaking AI and computational biotech ventures. We further appreciate Amiti's recognition that Israel's ecosystem is poised to lead the world in bringing AI and biotech together to solve our biggest drug discovery challenges."
By joining forces with Amiti, AION Labs is enhancing its expertise and capabilities in the deep tech and computational technology domains, areas that are critical to the success of biotech innovation. Amiti's extensive experience and track record in these fields will bring invaluable investor knowledge and insights to AION Labs, enabling it to more effectively develop and support early-stage startups focused on AI and computational biology. Amiti's first investment in the venture studio will entail investment in DenovAI Biotech's Seed round of funding. Launched in 2022, DenovAI is developing an AI-powered biophysics solution for de novo antibody and protein design.
AION Labs builds and invests in early-stage startup teams focused on AI and computational biology in drug discovery and development, offering them top-notch resources and mentorship while working closely with them to develop new technologies that meet the most significant challenges in the pharmaceutical industry. The partnership with Amiti Ventures will help AION Labs to advance healthcare towards patient-centric precision medicine and create a significant contribution to the health and well-being of humankind by helping to bring new treatments to market faster and more efficiently.
"We believe that AION Labs is uniquely positioned to identify the biggest challenges to accelerate drug discovery and development and then evaluate the best computational bio approaches and entrepreneurs," said Ben Rabinowitz, Founder and Managing Partner of Amiti Ventures. "AION Labs' venture studio model bridges the gap between outstanding academic research, huge leaps forward in generative AI, and the biggest challenges and opportunities in the development of new medicines, and we look forward to working closely with our new partners to make this a reality.
"We also have been amazed by the can-do spirit of the AION Labs team," added Rabinowitz. "It is that readiness to create, pull themselves up by the bootstraps and forge ahead with amazing innovation that makes AION and Israel's entire startup ecosystem so special."
About AION Labs
AION Labs is a first-of-its-kind alliance of Astrazeneca, Merck, Pfizer, Teva, the Israel Biotech Fund, Amiti Ventures, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), powered by BioMed X with the support of the Israeli Government via the Israel Innovation Authority, that have come together with one clear mission: to create and adopt groundbreaking new AI technologies that will transform the process of drug discovery and development in order to contribute to the health and well-being of all people world-wide.
AION Labs is a unique venture hub where brilliant innovators and scientist-founders convene from around the world to solve the biggest R&D challenges guided by years of accumulated know-how, data and experience in pharma. The lab leverages its partners' wealth of knowledge and a new multidisciplinary mindset with the ingenuity, agility and innovative power of Israel's startup ecosystem, to develop strong companies with clear long-term strategies, that will pave the way to the future of healthcare. AION Labs cultivates innovation from within; its unique venture creation process bridges the gap between outstanding academic research in the field of AI and the biggest R&D needs in the discovery and development of new medicines for the benefit of patients.
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PHARMA TECH
PR Newswire | January 08, 2024
Medison Pharma ("Medison"), a global pharma company focused on providing access to highly innovative therapies to patients in international markets, announced today their exclusive multi-national agreement with Regeneron Ireland DAC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leading biotechnology company that invents, develops and commercializes life-transforming medicines for people with serious diseases, to commercialize Libtayo (cemiplimab), a fully human monoclonal antibody targeting the immune checkpoint receptor PD-1 on T cells, in select European markets and additional markets around the world.
Libtayo was invented in laboratories at Regeneron, which acquired exclusive worldwide development, commercialization, and manufacturing rights to the medicine from Sanofi in July 2022. Medison and Regeneron will work together with all stakeholders and regulatory authorities to facilitate a seamless transition of commercialization activities to Medison during the first half of 2024.
Libtayo, which was invented using Regeneron's proprietary VelocImmune® technology, is currently approved by regulatory authorities in more than two dozen countries, including by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). In select markets, it is approved as monotherapy treatment for certain patients with advanced basal cell carcinoma (BCC), as monotherapy treatment for certain patients with advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC), as both monotherapy or in combination with chemotherapy for certain patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and/or as monotherapy treatment for certain patients with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer. Libtayo is a leading and first-in-class PD-1 inhibitor approved for the treatment of two non-melanoma skin cancers and is considered standard of care in these indications.
"Our multi-regional commercial platform is a great fit for Regeneron's go-to-market plan and another great opportunity for Medison to facilitate access to highly innovative therapies for people suffering from rare and severe diseases," said Meir Jakobsohn, Founder and Executive Chairman of Medison. "Regeneron's selection of Medison is yet another testimony of the unique value that our multi-regional solution can generate for innovative biotech companies wishing to focus on selected markets."
"We are proud to partner with Regeneron," said Gil Gurfinkel, CEO of Medison. "Our one-of-a-kind centralized, unified commercial platform, with single alliance management across multiple markets and regions, is of great value to more and more leading biotech companies. Our platform enables biotech companies to transform numerous complex and fragmented markets and regions into a unified territory."
About Libtayo
Libtayo is a fully human monoclonal antibody targeting the immune checkpoint receptor PD-1 on T cells and was invented using Regeneron's proprietary VelocImmune technology. By binding to PD-1, Libtayo has been shown to block cancer cells from using the PD-1 pathway to suppress T-cell activation. In the U.S. and other countries Libtayo is indicated in certain patients with advanced BCC, advanced CSCC and advanced NSCLC, as well as in advanced cervical cancer in the European Union, Canada and Brazil. As of July 1, 2022, Libtayo is developed and marketed globally by Regeneron. Outside of the U.S., the generic name for Libtayo is cemiplimab.
The extensive clinical program for Libtayo is focused on difficult-to-treat cancers. Libtayo is currently being investigated in trials as a monotherapy, as well as in combination with either conventional or novel therapeutic approaches for other solid tumors and blood cancers. These potential uses are investigational, and their safety and efficacy have not been evaluated by any regulatory authority.
About Medison Pharma
Medison is a global pharma company focused on providing access to highly innovative therapies to patients in international markets. Medison is the first to create an international commercialization platform for highly innovative therapies, helping to save and improve lives by making the best available novel treatments accessible to patients in international markets. Medison has a track record of multi-territorial partnerships with leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies seeking to expand their global reach.
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RESEARCH
PR Newswire | January 09, 2024
DotLab, a medical diagnostics company, announced top-tier pharmaceutical research clients for its DotEndo platform. The customers include global companies with interests in diagnosing or monitoring endometriosis on a Research Use Only basis in clinical trial subjects to support the development of new medicines.
"We're proud to share the news of our global pharmaceutical partners, which are complementary to our planned, large clinical offering for commercial endometriosis tests based on our technologies," said DotLab's founder, Heather Bowerman. "Our pharma partners conducted rigorous diligence of our science and intellectual property prior to the execution of our contracts, and they view our platform as the first of its kind and the leader in this space."
The DotEndo™ platform's AI/ML technology was developed via DotLab's EMPOWER clinical trial, a prospective, observational, multi-center study run at endometriosis centers of excellence across the United States. EMPOWER is the most robust clinical study of its type ever performed for diagnosing and monitoring endometriosis, making it an excellent foundation for the platform. Based on these successes, DotLab announced Morgan Stanley as a new investor in late 2023.
"We intend to continue to offer our pharma clients – and, ultimately, clinicians – a comprehensive endometriosis menu of tests and tools. Endometriosis is notorious for its complex biology, and there has long been a need for tests and tools to diagnose and monitor endometriosis – and ultimately, to improve endpoints for the disease in therapeutic trials," said Bowerman.
About DotLab
Dot Laboratories, Inc. ("DotLab") is solving some of the world's most significant diagnostic challenges via the latest advancements in multiomics and computational biology. The company delivers clinical innovations to areas of significant unmet need via novel, cutting-edge biomarkers and the power of machine learning to deliver non-invasive tests. The company has driven a paradigm shift in the identification and management of endometriosis. DotLab is female-founded and female-led.
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