Polaris Group (北極星藥業集團) yesterday said its studies into using its new cancer treatment, ADI-PEG 20, in a combination treatment would be boosted by a newly formed partnership with a US cancer research center.
The company has been invited to join the Immunotherapy group at the University of Texas’ MD Anderson Cancer Center, Polaris Group chief executive officer Wu Bor-wen (吳伯文) told an investors’ conference in Taipei.
The company has also recruited James Allison and Padmanee Sharma, the center’s leading immunotherapy experts, to serve on its scientific advisory board, he said, adding that the two had drawn the interest of institutional investors at US conferences.
Wu said Allison was the inventor of Yervoy, the first immunotherapy drug to gain US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.
The company gave poster presentations on immunotherapy and its new fusion protein biologic at this year’s meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, Wu said.
The company is studying a combination of ADI-PEG 20 and the antibody Keytruda as a possible treatment for head and neck cancer, and is planning to study a combination with Opdivo and Yervoy to treat eye melanoma, Wu said.
In related news, PharmaEngine Inc (智擎) on Wednesday said that a decision by the company’s licensing partner, Shire PLC, to sell its oncology business to Servier Laboratories Ltd for US$2.4 billion is expected to bring greater access to the Chinese market for its pancreatic cancer drug, Onivyde.
PharmaEngine said that Servier is France’s second-largest pharmaceutical company, and that its resources and 2,000 employees are expected to speed up the regulatory approval process in the country.
Meanwhile, OBI Pharma Inc (台灣浩鼎) also announced yesterday that the US FDA has cleared an investigational new drug application for a phase I/II study of OBI-3424, a first-in-class DNA alkylating agent.
The agent expands upon the company’s targeted cancer treatment pipeline as it targets AKR1C3, an enzyme that is overexpressed in a variety of solid and liquid tumors.
The company outlined plans to enroll patients with solid tumors to verify the safety of OBI-3424 and to develop a preliminary activity profile for the agent, a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange said.
Since the beginning of this year, the Taiwan Stock Exchange and Taipei Exchange’s biotechnology index has risen by nearly 20 percent.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last