DIJON, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

ONCODESIGN (FR0011766229 - ALONC), a biotechnology company serving the pharmaceutical industry in the discovery of new therapeutic molecules to fight cancer and other serious illnesses with no known effective treatment, presents its latest scientific developments at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2017 held on April 1-5, in Washington DC, USA.

The AACR is the largest global organisation that brings together public and private actors involved in cancer research. Its annual meetings attract every year over 18,000 researchers from the industry and academia.

On this occasion, Oncodesign will present several of its recent scientific developments:

• As part of the IMODI project, Oncodesign will present a poster on one of the more important collections of extensively characterised predictive models for pancreatic cancer in the world. The collection of breast cancer models, particularly documented and representative of the human disease, caught the attention of the organisers of the AACR meeting and will be presented during a dedicated conference on April 4, 2017. According to the INCA study, breast cancer is the cancer with highest incidence in women, with over 54,000 new cases each year in France.
• As part of the IMAkinib project, Oncodesign will present the preclinical, cellular and in vivo imaging results obtained with its first PET-tracer generated by the Nanocyclix® technology, currently in phase 1 of its development in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
• Oncodesign will also present the results of its Experimentation’s research activities on a new immunotherapy formulation conducted for the US company Checkmate Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA). Remarkable efficacy results have been obtained, in combination with immune checkpoint modulators, in several cancer indications.
• Finally, Oncodesign will describe in a fourth poster Experimentation’s internal research conducted on the resistance to PD-1¹ blockade. Antibodies targeting PD-1 have been recently approved as second line treatments for several types of cancer (urethra, kidney, head and neck, Hodgkin’s lymphoma), or as first line treatment for metastatic melanoma and metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. In spite of the positive response rates and increased survival in the majority of treated patients, a resistance phenomenon develops in certain patients. The Oncodesign research presented at the AACR meeting aims to develop combination strategies to overcome such resistance and to identify biomarkers. This research showcases complex data analyses, such as cytokine profiles studied in syngeneic models.

Jan Hoflack, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Oncodesign, said: “Being represented in this way in one of the largest global medical meetings on oncology is a privilege, which provides unparalleled visibility to Oncodesign. This reinforces further the reputation of Oncodesign in terms of its research quality, upheld by the commitment of all our teams to promote the discovery of more effective new drugs.”

Full details on Oncodesign presentations during the AACR meeting:

About ONCODESIGN: www.oncodesign.com

Founded over 20 years ago by Dr Philippe Genne, the Company’s CEO and Chairman, Oncodesign is a biotechnology company that maximises the pharmaceutical industry’s chances of success in discovering new therapeutic molecules to fight cancer and other serious illnesses with no known effective treatment. With its unique experience acquired by working with more than 600 clients, including the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, along with its comprehensive technological platform combining state-of-the-art medicinal chemistry, advanced animal modelling and medical imaging, Oncodesign is able to predict and identify, at a very early stage, each molecule's therapeutic usefulness and potential to become an effective drug. Applied to kinase inhibitors, which represent a market estimated at over $46 billion in 2016 and accounting for almost 25% of the pharmaceutical industry’s R&D expenditure, Oncodesign’s technology has already enabled the targeting of several promising molecules with substantial therapeutic potential, in oncology and elsewhere, along with partnerships with pharmaceutical groups such as Bristol-Myers Squibb and UCB. Oncodesign is based in Dijon, France, in the heart of the town’s university and hospital hub, and within the Paris-Saclay cluster, Oncodesign has 165 employees and subsidiaries in Canada and the USA.

¹ Cell surface protein expressed in particular on activated T cells

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