Aduro BioTech announces issuance of two important patents

Jul 15 2010

Aduro BioTech, a clinical-stage immunotherapy company, announced today the issuance of two important patents, the formation of a distinguished scientific advisory board, the addition of key members to its Board of Directors, and the reporting of preliminary top line long-term survival data from a Phase 1 clinical trial with 2 year follow-up.

“I'm extremely pleased that these extraordinary individuals have agreed to join our scientific and corporate boards, and they will complement the excellent scientific staff we now have at Aduro”

The recently issued patents are owned exclusively by Aduro and provide broad protection of the company's live attenuated and "killed but metabolically active" (KBMA) Listeria platforms, which have both been shown to induce immune responses and to express exogenous disease antigens in various preclinical models. US Patent 7,691,393 covers genetic modifications to Listeria that attenuate the ability of the microorganism to invade non-phagocytic cells and to spread from cell to cell. The live-attenuated Listeria strain protected by this patent forms the basis for Aduro's clinical programs. US Patent 7,695,725 pertains to the KBMA platform and provides an additional level of attenuation by inhibiting replication. Both of these patents are key to the company's patent estate and product development strategy.

To take full advantage of these platforms, Aduro has assembled a scientific advisory board (SAB) of thought leaders in immunotherapy that includes:

• Drew M. Pardoll, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of the SAB and the Seraph Professor of Oncology, Medicine, Pathology and Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Pardoll is a leader in the clinical development of cancer immunotherapy, and has worked with the Aduro team since 2002.

• Thomas W. Dubensky Jr., Ph.D., the Chief Scientific Officer at Immune Design Corporation. Dr. Dubensky was a co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Anza Therapeutics and the Vice President of Research at Cerus Corporation from 2002-2007.

• Philip Greenberg, M.D., Professor of Medicine (Oncology) and Immunology at the University of Washington and Head of the Immunology Program at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. Dr. Greenberg is a leader in the field of T-cell immunity and vaccine development.

• John E. Hearst, PhD., emeritus Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley, was a co-founder of Cerus Corporation, where he served on the Board of Directors from 1992 to 2001. Dr. Hearst is an expert in nucleic acid chemistry and an inventor of the technology now protected by the '725 patent.

• Frank McCormick, Ph.D., F.R.S., D.Sc. (Hon), Director of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and Associate Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine. Dr. McCormick founded Onyx Pharmaceuticals in 1992 and served as its CSO until 1996.

• Daniel A. Portnoy, Ph.D., Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley. Dr. Portnoy is an expert on Listeria, cell biology, and immunobiology and his lab was instrumental in the development of Listeria as a vector for cancer vaccines.

• Mike Powell, Ph.D., General Partner at Sofinnova Ventures. Dr. Powell is an expert in vaccine discovery and development and the author of multiple publications in the vaccine field.

In addition to their roles on the SAB, Drs. Pardoll and McCormick have joined the Aduro Board of Directors. "Aduro's Listeria technology offers unique advantages in its ability to stimulate both a strong innate and cellular immune response, which now appears to have clinical benefit," said Dr. Pardoll.

Also joining the Aduro Board of Directors is Mr. William (Obi) Greenman, the Chief Business Officer of Cerus Corporation, while Mr. Ross Haghighat, the CEO of Triton Systems, remains on the Aduro BOD. "I'm extremely pleased that these extraordinary individuals have agreed to join our scientific and corporate boards, and they will complement the excellent scientific staff we now have at Aduro," said Stephen Isaacs, Chairman and CEO.

Aduro's live-attenuated Listeria vaccine platform has been evaluated in three Phase 1 clinical trials. Aduro has performed an initial analysis of long-term survival data resulting from one of these clinical studies, utilizing the Listeria strain CRS-207, which was engineered to express Mesothelin, an antigen commonly over-expressed in a range of solid tumors. The CRS-207 Phase 1 safety trial examined 17 patients with late-stage, mesothelin-expressing tumors: 7 pancreatic, 5 mesothelioma, 3 non-small cell lung, and 2 ovarian. Recent and preliminary analysis of long-term survival data revealed that multiple patients survived significantly longer than historical controls. The clinical data from the CRS-207 trial are now undergoing more extensive review, and detailed results will be released later this year.

Source : Aduro BioTech