Memgen Announces Exclusive License Agreements With Moffitt Cancer Center to Develop Innovative Cancer Immunotherapies
HOUSTON - April 21, 2020 - (Newswire.com)
Memgen, a private biotechnology company developing innovative immuno-oncology drugs and immune therapeutics, announced today that it has entered into technology licensing agreements with the Moffitt Cancer Center, a premier center for cancer research and care.
The agreements cover intellectual property developed jointly by scientists at Memgen and Moffitt, including Memgen’s lead product, MEM-288, as well as additional pipeline products. MEM-288, incorporating the new technologies, exhibits significantly enhanced tumor selectivity and strong activity against a broad range of tumor types. This work paves the way for MEM-288 to enter the clinic later this year, treating patients suffering from difficult-to-treat cancers.
"Oncolytic viruses are emerging therapeutics capable of specifically killing tumor cells and stimulating anti-tumor immunity,” said co-inventor of the technology Amer Beg, Ph.D., who is a senior member of Department of Immunology at Moffitt. “MEM-288 not only exhibits high tumor cell killing but also induces a potent anti-tumor immune response in animal models through expression of MEM40 and IFN beta. As a result, we believe that MEM-288 will have substantial benefit in cancer patients who do not respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors.”
Beg worked with Scott Antonia, MD, Ph.D., Director of Duke Cancer Institute Center for Cancer Immunotherapy and Mark Cantwell, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Memgen, to develop the technology.
Dr. Gregory Brown, Memgen’s CEO, noted, “We are very pleased to enter into these license agreements with Moffitt. Memgen and Moffitt have established a close and collaborative relationship that has already proven fruitful in generating actionable product candidates that are advancing toward the clinic.”
Haskell Adler, Ph.D., MBA, senior licensing manager in Moffitt's Office of Innovation and Industry Alliances, added, “This deal highlights the significance of Drs. Beg and Antonia’s contributions to developing new immuno-oncology therapeutics to treat cancer patients.”
About Memgen
Memgen is a cancer immunotherapy company focused on creating drugs that harness the power of the immune system to cure cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Its first-in-class immune-oncology therapeutics are designed for the treatment of patients who do not respond to currently available therapeutic options. The Company’s lead product, MEM-288, is engineered to both selectively target cancer cells and supercharge the immune system through expression of two unique and powerful immune modulators: CD40 ligand (CD40L) and the powerful cytokine interferon beta. MEM-288 has been demonstrated to generate a strong systemic anti-tumor immune response following intra-tumoral vaccination in multiple tumors. The Company expects to begin clinical testing with MEM-288 in the current year. The Company’s pipeline products all utilize its proprietary CD40L transgene, MEM40, which has already been tested in human subjects and has demonstrated the ability to elicit powerful, antigen-specific anti-tumor immune responses across a broad range of tumor types.
In this press release, unless the context requires otherwise, “Memgen”, the “Company,” “Companies,” “we,” “our,” and “us” refers to Memgen, LLC.
Investor Contact:
Gregory B. Brown, M.D.
(203) 940-3742
gbrown@memgenbio.com
Media Contact:
Gregory B. Brown, M.D.
(203) 940-3742
gbrown@memgenbio.com
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Original Source: Memgen Announces Exclusive License Agreements With Moffitt Cancer Center to Develop Innovative Cancer Immunotherapies
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