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AVM Biotechnology Awarded SBIR Phase I Grant From National Cancer Institute

Published: Jun 11, 2020 10:20 am
AVM Biotechnology Awarded SBIR Phase I Grant From National Cancer Institute

Seattle, WA (Press Release) – AVM Biotech­nol­ogy has been awarded a National Cancer In­sti­tute Small Business Innovation Re­search (SBIR) Grant from the National In­sti­tutes of Health (NIH) to study the use of their lead mol­e­cule AVM0703 as a pre­con­di­tion­ing agent to allow safe and efficient de­livery of thera­peutic im­mune cells for cancer treat­ment. This novel solu­tion could offer clin­i­cal ad­van­tages to any cell-based immuno­therapy, im­prov­ing access to poten­tially life-saving ther­a­pies by all cancer patients, in­clud­ing those too frail to re­ceive chemo­ther­apy.

Cellular immuno­therapy has the poten­tial to be­come a crucial solu­tion for cancer. However, toxic chemo­ther­apy is cur­rently re­quired as pre­con­di­tion­ing treat­ment to im­pair graft rejection and main­tain thera­peutic cells in the bloodstream where they can target cancer cells. Chemotherapy is hardly tol­er­ated by frail cancer patients, and it fuels the side effects of immuno­therapy such as toxic cytokine re­leases (CRS) and neuroedemas. AVM0703, which could be easily admin­istered to in­crease efficient de­livery of adoptive cel­lu­lar immuno­therapy, induces safe lym­pho­de­ple­tion in only 24 hours, sparing platelets, stem cells and red blood cells in animal models. AVM0703 can safely deplete monocytes, known to be a key inducer of CRS. CRS toxicities oc­cur as fre­quently as 90% with half of them de­ter­mined as severe. Severe CRS com­pli­ca­tions can be life threatening if not treated in a timely manner. Unlike chemo­ther­apy, AVM0703 could safely deplete monocytes reducing the risk of CRS and making cel­lu­lar immuno­therapy accessible to high-risk in­di­vid­uals.

This Phase I grant will be used to val­i­date the ef­fi­cacy and safety of pre­con­di­tion­ing by AVM0703 in an estab­lished tumor mouse models of mul­ti­ple myeloma (MM). The proposal was regarded as very sig­nif­i­cant in addressing a clin­i­cal need of better ways for im­prov­ing ef­fi­cacy and reducing toxicity of cel­lu­lar ther­a­pies. Moreover, pre­con­di­tion­ing using AVM0703 was seen as well sup­ported by a good rationale and strong pre­lim­i­nary data. AVM0703 mode of action could offer an exemplary pre­con­di­tion­ing regi­men.

Named one of the top 10 best Biotech and Pharma com­pa­nies to keep your eye on in 2019 by Mirror Review Online Magazine, AVM Biotech­nol­ogy was founded in 2008 by Dr. Theresa Deisher, Ph.D. With over 30 years of suc­cess­ful pharma­ceu­tical re­search ex­peri­ence and holding over 47 pat­ents, Dr. Deisher leads a team of scientists ded­i­cated to changing what a diag­nosis of cancer, auto­im­mu­ni­ty, or chronic infectious dis­ease means to patients and their loved ones. AVM re­ceived FDA IND ap­prov­al in April 2020 to test AVM0703 for treat­ment of re­lapsed / re­frac­tory lymphoid malig­nan­cies. AVM's passion is to de­liver drugs that work rapidly and that are safe, ef­fec­tive, and af­ford­able, to treat serious world­wide illness like cancer, auto­im­mu­ni­ty, and life-altering infectious dis­ease. They de­vel­op prod­ucts that im­prove out­comes without addi­tional suffer­ing because they be­lieve that side effects from treat­ments of cancers or in­fec­tions should never be worse than the dis­eases themselves.

AVM is the only com­pany to re­ceive homologous use desig­na­tion for a patient's own bone mar­row used for an in­di­ca­tion outside of blood disorders. Addi­tionally, in 2019 AVM Biotech­nol­ogy was awarded an SBIR grant for targeted lympho-ablation as an alter­na­tive to cure Type I Diabetes by the National In­sti­tute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease (NIDDK).

This award was granted by the National In­sti­tutes of Health under Award Number R43CA246896. The content of this press re­lease is solely the re­spon­si­bil­ity of the author and does not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent the official views of the NIH.

Cautions Concerning Forward-Looking State­ments

All in­for­ma­tion con­tained herein has been provided by the com­pany and no other party has in­de­pen­dent­ly verified any of the in­for­ma­tion, in­clud­ing the fi­nan­cial esti­mates and pro­jec­tions con­tained herein. Some of the state­ments in the memorandum are "forward-looking state­ments." these for­ward-looking state­ments in­clude, but are not lim­ited to, state­ments about the com­pany's plans, objectives, ex­pec­ta­tions and intentions and other state­ments con­tained in the memorandum that are not historical facts. When used in this memorandum, the words "assumes," "antic­i­pates," "be­lieves," "con­tinue," "could," "expects," "forecasts," "intends," "may," "plans," "seeks," "should," or "will" or the neg­a­tive of these terms or similar ex­pres­sions are generally in­tended to identify for­ward-looking state­ments. Because these for­ward-looking state­ments in­volve risks and un­cer­tainties, there are im­por­tant factors that could cause actual re­­sults to differ ma­teri­ally from those ex­pressed or im­plied by these for­ward-looking state­ments, in­clud­ing the com­pany's plans, objectives, ex­pec­ta­tions and intentions and other factors discussed under "risk factors" such state­ments, esti­mates and pro­jec­tions reflect var­i­ous assump­tions of the com­pany that may or may not prove to be correct. And no rep­re­sen­ta­tion is made and no assurance can be given that the com­pany can or will attain such re­­sults.

Source: AVM Biotech­nol­ogy.

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