This week’s podcast has three guests. In honor of World Cancer Research Day on September 24, we have an overview of cancer research with Nadim Ahmed, CEO of Cullinan Oncology; a chat with Ivo Timmermans, CEO of Pleco Therapeutics; and talk with Anders Kristensson, CEO of TikoMed.
We also have our weekly chat with global commercial real estate services company JLL, with Travis McCready.
This week’s podcast is sponsored by Single Use Support, the end-to-end process solution provider for fluid management.
World Cancer Research Day: Support research to prevent cancer and catch it early
For seven consecutive years, the international research community is marking World Cancer Research Day (WCRD) on September 24, a global movement that seeks to raise awareness of the importance of cancer research to increase survival, facilitate access to scientific advances worldwide and reduce the global burden of cancer.
This year, experts in the field of oncology and cancer researchers will focus on cancer health disparities, particularly in the areas of prevention and early detection research and care. The motto this year is Support research to prevent cancer and catch it early.
Cancer is a major public health problem and the second leading cause of death worldwide. The global burden of cancer continues to grow, and it is expected to double by 2040, compared with the number of cases in 2012. Due to this situation, coordinated action is required that brings together all international efforts with initiatives such as the WCRD.
The international community comes together to promote cancer research and make a global call to raise awareness of the importance of cancer research and the current challenges that need to be addressed to ensure that research advances and results can reach patients as soon as possible.
Cullinan Oncology
To talk about the current state of cancer research, we spoke with Nadim Ahmed, CEO of Cullinan Oncology.
Cullinan Oncology is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to creating new standards of care for patients with cancer. It finds the most promising clinic-ready cancer therapies through its own discovery efforts and engagement with academic and industry partners.
Cullinan leverages its scientific work in small molecules and biologics to create differentiated ideas, identify unique targets, and select the optimal modality to develop transformative therapeutics across cancer indications. Powered by its novel research model, Cullinan pushes conventional boundaries from candidate selection to cancer therapeutic, applying early experimentation to fast-track only the most promising assets to the clinic and ultimately commercialization.
As a result, the company’s pipeline is strategically built with assets that activate the immune system or inhibit key oncogenic drivers across a wide range of modalities, each with the potential to be the best or first in their class.
Pleco Therapeutics raises €17.3M to develop AML product
Pleco Therapeutics BV, a specialty biopharmaceutical company in the Netherlands developing novel treatments designed to detoxify the cancer micro-environment has raised total funds of €17.3 million ($17.2 million) in series A financing.
The funds will be used to complete development of, and to commercialize, the company’s novel lead Plecoid product, PTX-061, to improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy in patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).
Pleco’s technology provides a platform for the development of a pipeline of therapies. In addition to PTX-061 for AML, the current pipeline includes additional candidates in preclinical testing for the treatment of other rare diseases such as SCLC.
Research shows TikoMed’s ILB has the potential to treat neurodegenerative diseases including ALS
Peer-review research published in Frontiers in Pharmacology supports the broad spectrum mechanism of action of Swedish biopharma company TikoMed’s ILB neuroprotective drug platform.
In multiple preclinical and clinical studies across a variety of neuroinflammation-driven diseases, the low molecular weight dextran sulfate compound both mobilized and modulated naturally occurring tissue repair mechanisms and restored cellular homeostasis and function by releasing heparin-binding growth factors.
TikoMed said it believes this approach to enhancing the body’s self-repair and regeneration capabilities has the potential to transform current cell and gene therapy paradigms.