Year: 2018

“This is an exciting day for Duke and the patients we serve,” said Mary E. Klotman, MD, Dean, Duke University School of Medicine and Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs. “This new partnership will help further Duke’s commitment to improving the lives of people in our own community and around the world by supporting and accelerating the translation of research into new therapies to treat and cure society’s most formidable healthcare challenges.”

By way of a newly launched company called Four Points Innovation, up to $130 million of initial funding will be made available by Deerfield to back the initiative for 10 years.  Deerfield also will provide development expertise in support of Duke’s innovative drug research across a span of high-need therapeutic areas, as well as those targeting patients who suffer from hard-to-treat and rare diseases.

A private company wholly owned by affiliates of Deerfield, Four Points Innovation will support Duke R&D projects throughout preclinical stages of drug discovery and development. Beginning approximately in March 2020, Duke researchers will have the ability to submit proposals on projects for consideration by a Four Points Innovation committee comprised of scientific leadership representing both Duke and Deerfield.

Accepted projects will include a development plan aimed at achieving Investigational New Drug (IND) readiness. Deerfield will provide funding and operational support for accepted projects, and successful projects that achieve IND-enabled status may be eligible for additional capital from Deerfield.

Duke’s Office of Licensing and Ventures broke previous records last year with 354 invention disclosures, 120 agreements, and 32 exclusive agreements. Duke faculty and staff formed sixteen new start-up companies during the year, bringing the university’s total to over 140 new companies. Over the last two years, 29 of the university’s 32 startups have chosen to stay in North Carolina.

“Duke University, with its vast research enterprise, world-class investigators and novel innovations, is a leader in biomedical discovery,” said James E. Flynn, Managing Partner at Deerfield Management. “We are excited about entering into this partnership with Duke, as we collectively seek to develop new medicines to save lives and address unmet medical needs.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Four Points Innovation would receive an option to license Four Points Innovation-funded intellectual property developed at Duke.

When used in conjunction with MRI, these gases offer a fundamentally new and non-invasive functional imaging platform. By inhaling and holding a small amount of the gas for just a few seconds, the patient is able to create a much stronger MRI signal, providing doctors with multiple images of lung structure and function.

Current investigational uses include identifying early diagnoses of respiratory diseases as well as monitoring progression and therapeutic response. In addition, xenon gas exhibits solubility and signal properties that enable it to be imaged within other tissues and organs.

Polarean said the new funds will be used to support the preparation and submission of the NDA, the initial preparation for commercial launch following submission of the NDA, and to provide additional working capital to build and sell additional polarisers.

Polarean’s Richard Hullihen said in June they’re targeting the third quarter of 2020 to submit an NDA for its drug-device combination.

“NMOSD is an extremely challenging disease to treat. Patients experience unpredictable attacks that can lead to permanent disability from blindness and paralysis. In addition, each subsequent attack may result in a cumulative worsening of disability. In the pivotal N-MOmentum trial, UPLIZNATM—a humanized CD19-directed monoclonal antibody—significantly reduced the risk of attacks and also reduced hospitalizations when given as a monotherapy,” said Bruce Cree, M.D., Ph.D., MAS, the lead investigator for the N-MOmentum trial and Professor of Clinical Neurology at the University of California San Francisco Weill Institute for Neurosciences. “UPLIZNATM is an important new treatment option that provides prescribing physicians and patients living with NMOSD a therapy with proven efficacy, a favorable safety profile and a twice-a-year maintenance dosing schedule.”

NMOSD is a rare, severe, neuroinflammatory autoimmune disease that attacks the optic nerve, spinal cord and brain stem. In addition to potentially irreversible blindness and paralysis, patients may also experience loss of sensation, bladder and bowel dysfunction, nerve pain and respiratory failure. It is estimated that there are approximately 10,000 people in the U.S. suffering from NMOSD2. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that NMOSD is a B-cell-mediated disorder.

“As an organization that understands and represents the struggle of patients and their loved ones affected by NMOSD, we are pleased that now there is another treatment option that could reduce their attacks, which can lead to devastating and irreversible disability,” said Victoria Jackson, co-founder of the Guthy-Jackson Charitable Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to funding research and raising awareness about NMOSD. “We have been proud to partner with Viela Bio and congratulate them and the NMOSD community on this important milestone.”

Read the full story here

[Originally posted by GlobeNewswire — June 11, 2020]

“Today’s announcement marks the first time a therapeutic antibody derived from single B cells of cancer patients, and the first IgG3 subclass, has advanced to the clinic,” said Dr. Edward Patz Jr., M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Grid, and the James and Alice Chen Professor of Radiology, Professor in Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at Duke University School of Medicine. “Initiation of this study is a significant milestone for Grid, as we believe our unique strategy will transform cancer therapy.”

The Phase 1 segment of this trial will generate important data about the safety and tolerability of GT103, which targets complement factor H, a protein that protects tumor cells from complement lysis. The Phase 2 segment will be performed in combination with a checkpoint inhibitor, as recent pre-clinical data shows GT103 modulates the adaptive immune response and may potentiate current immune-oncology therapy.

Paolo Paoletti, Grid Board member and Chief Executive Officer of GammaDelta Therapeutics, stated, “This is an exciting and pioneering approach to a highly prevalent and intractable cancer, which currently has a very poor prognosis despite best available treatments.”

This trial is also designed to validate Grid’s innovative platform for the rapid development of additional therapeutic antibodies for the treatment of multiple forms of cancer.

Read the full story here

[Originally posted by BusinessWire — June 24, 2020]

“We are absolutely committed to Durham and have had to fight really, really hard against the demands of our investors to actually stay here,” Jantz said. “They want us to move to Cambridge or San Francisco, and we’ve said no, we’re staying in Durham. And the reason for that is, we like Duke and absolutely love this city and would like nothing more than to do everything we can to help Durham become a major hub of innovation and entrepreneurship.”

This year, the event also highlighted Duke’s innovation and entrepreneurship resources. From funding resources to incubators to oversight, more than 15 Featured Resources were on display providing guidance and facilitating discussions among Duke inventors and the broader Duke community.

“This event really highlights the breadth and depth of Duke’s innovation community,” said Jon Fjeld, director of Duke’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative. “It’s inspirational to see innovations coming from across the university, from the School of Medicine and the Office of Information Technology all the way to undergraduate engineers and even an invention by a dance faculty member. It’s also rewarding to see how many resources and collaborations at Duke play a role in helping to move ideas and innovations out into the world.”

OLV is responsible for handling all intellectual property (inventions) for Duke employees. “We work with researchers early on to identify promising ideas, decide the best way to protect the inventions, work with them to find the best partner, negotiate the deals, collect and distribute revenues, and sometimes handle litigation,” said Robin Rasor, Executive Director of OLV.

16 new start-up companies were added this year to the growing list formed from Duke research–bringing Duke’s overall start-up total to 142. 14 of this year’s 16 are staying in North Carolina, with 29 of 32 total start-ups remaining in the Triangle over the past two years. This year OLV broke previous records with 354 invention disclosures, 120 agreements, and 32 exclusive agreements. 91 US patents were issued this year as well.

A protective respirator created by the Duke COVID-19 Engineering Response Team to combat the critical shortage of medical equipment was used successfully by health care workers in two Duke Health surgical cases last week.

With the high need for more personal protective equipment, Duke engineering professors Ken Gall, Paul Fearis and Eric Richardson recognized the need to turn a surgical helmet, which uses room air, into a powered air-purifying respirator (PAPR), which uses filtered air.

The Duke Engineering team worked closely with Chip Bobbert, Sr. Engineer and Fabrication Architect in Duke’s Innovation Co-Lab to print and test numerous designs using their Formlabs printers.