PALM BEACH, Fla., Jan. 09, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FN Media Group News Commentary - According to the report titled "Aging in the United States," published by the Population Reference Bureau, "the number of Americans aged 65 and older is projected to increase more than double over 95 million by the year 2060, and it is expected to rise to approximately 23 percent from 16 percent. Cancer is a non-treatable chronic disease that has posed a challenge to the medical fraternity for decades. The fatal nature of the disease, coupled with the low rate of success for treatments, has compelled medical practitioners to deploy new research methodologies. The entire medical research fraternity has prioritized cancer research in order to find new ways of treatment and analysis. According to Nova one advisor, the global Oncology Cancer Drugs market was valued at USD 147.2 billion in 2021 and it is expected to hit around USD 289.2 billion by 2030 with a CAGR of 8.4% during the forecast period 2022 to 2030. The report said: “Cancer drugs are utilized the treatment of pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, gastric cancer, kidney cancer, brain tumors, and other cancers through chemotherapy, surgery, and radiotherapy.”   Active biotech and pharma companies in the markets this week include Oncolytics Biotech^® Inc. (NASDAQ: ONCY) (TSX: ONC), Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN), Ambrx Biopharma, Inc., (NASDAQ: AMAM), Elevation Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ: ELEV), Nkarta, Inc. (NASDAQ: NKTX).

The article continued: “Drugs such as morphine, fentanyl, acetaminophen, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), and others are used extensively in treating cancer pain in patients with lung cancer, bone cancer, and other types of cancer. As a result of the sharp uptick in the number of new cancer cases being diagnosed worldwide, there has been a concomitant increase in the amount of money spent on medications intended to alleviate the suffering caused by cancer. There is an expectation that the market's growth will be fueled by an increase in the prevalence of cancer.”

Oncolytics Biotech^® Inc. (NASDAQ: ONCY) (TSX: ONC) Appoints Patricia S. Andrews to its Board of Directors - Oncolytics Biotech® Inc., a clinical-stage immunotherapeutics company focused on oncology, today announced the appointment of Patricia S. Andrews to its Board of Directors (the “Board”).

“I am pleased to welcome Pat Andrews to our Board of Directors,” said Dr. Matt Coffey, President and Chief Executive Officer of Oncolytics. “Pat’s extensive board and executive leadership experience navigating first registrational trials in oncology and completing transformational business development agreements with global pharmaceutical companies makes her a natural fit for Oncolytics. As we begin preparations to initiate pivotal studies with pelareorep in breast and pancreatic cancers and progress partnering discussions, we look forward to benefitting from her insights and strategic and operational experience.”

“I am honored to join the Oncolytics board at this exciting time for the organization as it advances pelareorep toward registrational studies,” said Ms. Andrews. “Promising recent results from the BRACELET-1 and GOBLET studies suggest that pelareorep has the potential to make an important contribution to cancer care, and I look forward to working with my fellow board members in addition to Dr. Coffey and the Executive Team to execute Oncolytics’ clinical and corporate development plans.”

Ms. Andrews is an accomplished biopharmaceutical executive and public company board member with a track record of success in corporate strategy, first-in-class and first-for-the-company new product commercializations, and business development. Ms. Andrews currently serves as a Director and Member of the Audit Committee at GlycoMimetics. During her tenure, the company planned and initiated its first Phase 3 study and is preparing for commercialization.

Ms. Andrews previously served as Chief Executive Officer for Sumitomo Pharma Oncology, Inc. (SMP Oncology), where she led the organization through the integration of its multiple predecessor companies. Under her leadership, the organization completed three Phase 3 trials and expanded the clinical pipeline from two programs to eight. Prior to SMP Oncology, Ms. Andrews served as Chief Commercial Officer for Incyte and led the organization through the launch preparations and introduction of Jakafi®, the company’s first commercial product, a novel, first-in-class, first-in-disease agent for the treatment of myelofibrosis. While with Incyte, she also steered landmark licensing arrangements with Novartis and Eli Lilly that were critically important to fund the company’s long-term trajectory. CONTINUED… Read these full press releases and more news for ONCY at:   https://www.financialnewsmedia.com/news-oncy/

Other recent developments in the biotech industry of note for cancer events include:

Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) recently announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has completed its review of the company's supplemental New Drug Application seeking full approval of LUMAKRAS^® (sotorasib). This review, which resulted in a Complete Response Letter, was based on the CodeBreaK 200 trial results for the treatment of adults with previously treated locally advanced or metastatic KRAS G12C-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The FDA also issued a new postmarketing requirement (PMR) for an additional confirmatory study to support full approval that will be completed no later than February 2028.

In addition, the FDA concluded that the dose comparison PMR issued at the time of LUMAKRAS accelerated approval, to compare the safety and efficacy of LUMAKRAS 960 mg daily dose versus a lower daily dose, has been fulfilled. The company said LUMAKRAS at 960 mg once-daily will remain the dose for patients with KRAS G12C-mutated NSCLC under accelerated approval.

Amgen is committed to unlocking the potential of biology for patients suffering from serious illnesses by discovering, developing, manufacturing and delivering innovative human therapeutics. This approach begins by using tools like advanced human genetics to unravel the complexities of disease and understand the fundamentals of human biology.

Ambrx Biopharma, Inc., or Ambrx (NASDAQ: AMAM), recently announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement pursuant to which Johnson & Johnson will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Ambrx for $28.00 per share in cash, representing an approximately 105% premium to Ambrx’s closing stock price on January 5, 2024, for a total equity value of approximately $2.0 billion.

“We are excited to reach this agreement with Johnson & Johnson for advancing scientific research to treat cancers with high unmet needs,” said Daniel J. O’Connor, Chief Executive Officer of Ambrx. “With our deep and unique knowledge of precision engineering of protein therapeutics enabled by our proprietary technology incorporating synthetic amino acids in living cells, Ambrx has developed next-generation novel drug candidates such as site-specifically conjugated highly stable antibody drug conjugates. Through this transaction, we will continue to advance our leading prostate cancer candidate and Ambrx’s promising pipeline, while delivering significant and certain cash value to our shareholders. This announcement is the culmination of two decades of scientific work, combined with the Ambrx team’s talent, hard work and innovation. I look forward to what Ambrx will achieve as part of Johnson & Johnson.”

Elevation Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ: ELEV), an innovative oncology company focused on the discovery and development of selective cancer therapies to treat patients across a range of solid tumors with significant unmet medical needs, recently announced program updates and upcoming 2024 milestones.

"Our vision is to leverage our ADC and oncology drug development expertise to deliver innovative, selective cancer therapies to millions of patients with significant unmet needs. In 2023, we made meaningful progress toward this goal, focusing our resources on advancing EO-3021, our anti-Claudin 18.2 ADC therapy," said Joseph Ferra, President and Chief Executive Officer of Elevation Oncology. "As evidenced by initial clinical data presented by our partner, we believe EO-3021 represents a highly differentiated, potentially best-in-class molecule, able to deliver better tolerability and improved anti-tumor activity to patients with tumors expressing varying levels of Claudin 18.2. We look forward to sharing an update from our ongoing trial in mid-2024."

Nkarta, Inc. (NASDAQ: NKTX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing engineered natural killer (NK) cell therapies, recently announced a poster presentation at the 2023 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition featuring follow-up data from its Phase 1 clinical trial that evaluates NKX101 in patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (r/r AML). NKX101 is an allogeneic, off-the-shelf NK cell therapy candidate derived from healthy donors and engineered to target NKG2D ligands.

As reported in June 2023, of those patients who received NKX101 after a disease-specific lymphodepletion (LD) regimen comprising fludarabine and cytarabine (Flu/Ara-C), four of six achieved CR/CRi. In the follow up presented recently, three of those four patients remained in CR/CRi at 4 months from treatment with NKX101. No cases of cytokine release syndrome (CRS), immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS), or graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) of any grade were observed in these patients.

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