Nearly three years after being terminated as president and CEO of Cytodyn Inc., Nader Pourhassan was convicted June 9 by a U.S. federal jury for his role in a securities fraud scheme to deceive investors about the Vancouver, Wash.-based company’s development of leronlimab. The jury also convicted Kazem Kazempour, the CEO of Amarex Clinical Research LLC, a contract research organization hired by Cytodyn, for his part in the scheme.
Kura Oncology, Inc. and Kyowa Kirin Co. Ltd.’s selective oral menin inhibitor ziftomenib showed encouraging data across multiple studies, the most encouraging of which were in combination with other standard of care therapies in patients with NPM1-mutant and KMT2A-rearranged acute myeloid leukemia.
Candel Therapeutics Inc. followed this spring’s positive phase II data in pancreatic cancer with favorable results from a phase III study testing the same drug – viral immunotherapy CAN-2409 – in localized prostate cancer. Shares of Needham, Mass.-based Candel (NASDAQ:CADL) closed Dec. 11 at $7.75, up $3.14, or 68%.
Mirati Therapeutics Inc. has divulged GTPase KRAS (G12S mutant) and/or GTPase KRAS (G12C mutant) inhibitors reported to be useful for the treatment of cancer.
Scientists at Daegu-Gyeongbuk Medical Innovation Foundation and Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology have synthesized phenaleno-isoquinolinium-based compounds reported to be useful for the treatment of cancer.
Nextcure Inc. has reported IND clearance from the FDA enabling initiation of a phase I trial of LNCB-74, a B7-H4-targeting antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) being developed for various cancers.
The effective targeting of RAS-mutant acute myeloid leukemia (AML) still remains a challenge; RAS mutations are tied to relapse to targeted therapy, such as resistance to FLT3 inhibitors due to the RAS/MAPK pathway, for example.