~ LLS will fund the Phase II development via an equity investment in Kiadis Pharma ~
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, February 1, 2016 – Kiadis Pharma N.V. (“Kiadis Pharma” or the “Company”) (Euronext Amsterdam and Brussels: KDS), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative T-cell immunotherapy treatments for blood cancers and inherited blood disorders, today announces that it has entered into a partnership with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) under which LLS will fund the Phase II development of Kiadis Pharma’s lead product, ATIR101™, through an equity investment of approximately $1 million.
LLS is investing via its Therapy Acceleration Program (TAP), a strategic initiative to partner directly with biotechnology companies to help accelerate the development of promising therapies, and the funds will be used to finance Kiadis Pharma’s second ongoing Phase II trial in leukemia patients. The Company intends to continue this trial into a randomized controlled Phase III pivotal study that is planned to start later this year. This ongoing Phase II trial is investigating the repeated dosing of ATIR101™ as an adjunctive treatment to a T-cell depleted haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) (donor cells from a half-matched related donor) in adult patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The trial (CR-AIR-008; NCT02500550 / EudraCT 2015-002821-20) is conducted under an IND of the United States Food and Drug Administration and is set up to enroll patients in the United States as well as other countries, including Canada, Belgium and the United Kingdom.
Manfred Rüdiger, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of Kiadis Pharma, commented: “We are pleased to be partnering with the world’s largest voluntary health agency focused on blood cancers. We see this as another validation of our innovative product candidate ATIR101™. The extensive network and expertise of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society will be extremely valuable to us as we prepare to set up the pivotal Phase III study later this year. The fact that LLS is investing into Kiadis Pharma with equity is also a strong sign of confidence in what we do and our goal remains to be to bring this important product to patients as quickly as possible.”
Louis J. DeGennaro, Ph.D., LLS’s President and CEO, added: Stem cell transplantation is one of the most effective curative treatments for blood cancer patients, but it comes with great risk of life-threatening infection and graft versus host disease (GVHD). Kiadis Pharma’s ATIR101™ shows promise in fighting these infections by boosting the patient’s immune system whilst also reducing GVHD. LLS is enthusiastic about supporting this program which we hope will improve outcomes for patients with blood cancers.”
