Denovo Biopharma Acquires a Novel Late-Stage Oncology Drug and Expands into Protein Therapeutics

SAN DIEGO, Dec. 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Denovo Biopharma, a pioneer in applying precision medicine to develop innovative therapies, today announced it has licensed its seventh late-stage drug asset: endostatin (now named DB108) from Jiangsu Wuzhong Pharmaceutical Group Corporation (“Wuzhong Pharmaceutical”. Denovo gains global rights (except China) to develop, manufacture and commercialize endostatin.

DB108 is a recombinant protein drug that inhibits tumor growth and metastasis by inhibiting angiogenesis. DB108 is obtained by expression in E. coli, has a molecular weight of 20KDa, a total of 184 amino acids, and the same amino acid sequence as naturally-occuring human endostatin. Wuzhong Pharmaceutical studied DB108 as a first-line treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC ) in a Phase 3 clinical trial. This trial demonstrated DB108 had a good safety and tolerability profile. Although DB108 showed no significant difference in median overall survival versus control, it had a significant efficacy benefit in median progression-free survival.

Dr. Michael F. Haller, Denovo Biopharma’s Chief Business Officer, said, “Wuzhong Pharmaceutical’s pioneering work on DB108 has laid a good foundation for our follow-up research and development. We plan on developing a targeted product through our whole-genome scanning platform technology to predict the efficacy of DB108 in a specific patient population. This product enables our expansion into the field of protein therapeutics.”

Mr. Yao Jianlin, Chairman of Wuzhong Pharmaceutical, said, “Denovo Biopharma is a leading precision medicine company with superb biomarker research and development capabilities. Recombinant human endostatin injection is a novel medicine developed by Wuzhong Pharmaceutical that may provide better treatment options for clinical patients worldwide.”

About Denovo Biopharma
Denovo Biopharma is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that applies novel biomarker approaches to re-evaluate medicines that have failed in broad patient populations. The company seeks to discover genomic biomarkers correlated with patients’ responses to drug candidates retrospectively. Denovo then designs and executes efficient clinical trials in targeted patient populations to optimize the probability of a successful trial. Denovo is enrolling patients in the U.S. and China with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) in a Phase 3 clinical trial and will start a Phase 3 trial in Glioblastoma (GBM) for its lead product candidate, DB102 (enzastaurin), which was in-licensed from Eli Lilly. The company has six additional late-stage programs targeting major unmet needs: DB103 (pomaglumetad methionil) for schizophrenia, DB104 (liafensine) for depression, DB105 (formerly ORM-12741) for Alzheimer’s Disease, DB106 (vosaroxin) for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), DB107 (formerly Toca 511 and Toca FC) for recurrent high grade glioma, and DB108 (endostatin) for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). For additional information please visit www.denovobiopharma.com.

Contact:
Michael F. Haller, Chief Business Officer and Head of US Finance
Denovo Biopharma
mhaller@denovobiopharma.com

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SOURCE Denovo Biopharma LLC