Newsgroup: it.economia.borsa
Titolo: CELL TH/AEQUUS

      Former Immunex Management Team Chosen to Head-Up CTI Subsidiary Aequus
BioPharma, Inc.
      CTI and Aequus BioPharma to Co-Develop Genetic Polymer(TM) Modified
G-CSF for First Follow-on Biologic Product
      SEATTLE, May 14, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News
Network/ -- Cell Therapeutics, Inc. (CTI) (Nasdaq; MTAX: CTIC) today
announced the management team for its recently- formed subsidiary Aequus
BioPharma, Inc. Carl J. March, Ph.D., MBA, a former Senior Vice President at
Immunex has been chosen to lead the new company as President and CEO.
Stewart D. Chipman, Ph.D., Vice President of Research at CTI and former
Director of Biomolecular Screening at Immunex, who was a co- inventor of the
technology and managed the team that advanced its development through an
initial proof of concept stage, will serve as Executive Vice President and
Chief Scientific Officer. David Cosman, Ph.D., former Distinguished Fellow
and Research Director at Amgen and Vice President of Molecular Biology at
Immunex, will join the Company's Board of Directors.
      CTI also announced it will co-develop AQB-101 with Aequus BioPharma,
Inc. AQB-101 is being developed as a follow-on biologic that is a Genetic
Polymer modified version of G-CSF, to help fight infection in some patients
taking chemotherapy. The therapy has the potential to be dosed once per
chemotherapy cycle similar to some currently marketed G-CSF products, such
as Neulasta(R). Using Aequus' Genetic Polymer technology to create the novel
human therapeutic AQB-101 may result in greater ease of manufacture and a
lower cost of goods.
      "There is a lot of buzz around the Seattle venture and biotech
community about this technology and its potential to rapidly develop
follow-on biologics to current G-CSF or Interferon based human therapeutics
while at the same time having novel applications for delivering small
inhibitors of RNA," said James A. Bianco, M.D., President and CEO of CTI.
"We have put together some of the scientists from the team who participated
in the development of biologics at Immunex, such as Leukine(R) and
Enbrel(R), so we are confident we have the requisite experience in protein
therapeutic development and manufacturing."
      CTI announced the formation of Aequus BioPharma in February. Its
mission is to further develop the Genetic Polymer technology, discovered at
CTI, which may speed the manufacture, development and commercialization of
novel biopharmaceuticals including follow-on biologics or so-called
biosimilars. CTI has committed to fund Aequus with a loan of up to $2
million and will initially retain a 70 percent equity interest in the new
company.
      "A key pitfall of protein therapeutics has been the relatively short
plasma life of these types of drugs, which leads to the need for frequent
injections and higher associated costs for therapies," said Bianco. "Aequus
BioPharma will utilize the Genetic Polymer technology which we expect to
extend the plasma half-life of therapeutic proteins and provide a
potentially less expensive, streamlined development pathway for next
generation of biologics. Aequus' technology can help speed access to the
benefit of these new biotech drugs for millions of patients."
      Carl March spent over 19 years in R&D at Immunex, most recently
serving as Senior Vice President of Information Technology and Biochemical
Sciences. In addition to co-managing the day-to-day discovery research
effort at Immunex, March was directly responsible for the company's
biochemical sciences group, which provided biochemistry, bioinformatics,
protein chemistry, proteomics, and small molecule expertise to Immunex's
cytokine biology research platform. March was also responsible for the
corporate library and information technology at Immunex and helped guide the
successful integration of the company's information systems with those at
Amgen following its acquisition of Immunex in 2002. March received his Ph.D.
in Chemistry from Purdue University and his MBA from the University of
Washington Business School. He has served on numerous advisory boards and
currently is a member of the Founding Board at the Information School
(iSchool) at the University of Washington.
      "I am very excited to team up with my former Immunex colleagues to
help commercialize the very promising Genetic Polymer technology developed
by Stewart and his team at CTI," said March. "While our initial focus will
be directed toward follow-on biologics, we certainly believe CTI's discovery
provides a platform which enables the rapid development of novel
biotherapeutics so that patients can more readily benefit from the extreme
pace of biomedical research we're experiencing in the post-genome era."
      Stewart Chipman is a biotech executive with over 15 years of
experience in building and leading scientific teams focused on the discovery
and development of novel human therapeutics in the fields of inflammation,
metabolic bone diseases, and cancer biology. Prior to joining Immunex, he
was Director of Biology at ArQule in Boston. Chipman received his B.S. in
Biology at Boston University and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Boston
University School of Medicine. Prior to pursuing his career in biotech, he
was an Associate Professor of Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University
Medical School. He has co-authored more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific
papers and is a co-inventor on seven U.S. and foreign patents.
      David Cosman was educated at Cambridge University, then pursued his
Ph.D. at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine and Tufts
University School of Medicine. He has published more than 130 peer-reviewed
scientific papers and reviews and is a co-inventor on 35 U.S. patents as
well as numerous foreign patents. One of the Institute for Scientific
Information's most highly-cited scientists in Immunology, he has served on
the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Keystone Symposia and Amgen Ventures,
and presently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of another Seattle
startup with Immunex roots, VLST Corporation.
      Additional board members will include Jack W. Singer, M.D., CTI's
Chief Medical Officer and co-inventor of the Genetic Polymer technology,
Fred W. Telling, Ph.D., CTI board member and former Vice President of
Corporate Policy and Strategic Management for Pfizer Inc., as well as Dr.
Bianco, who will serve as non-executive Chairman.
      About Biologics
      Biologics, especially recombinant DNA (rDNA) derived protein
biopharmaceuticals, represent the fastest growing segment of pharmaceutical
sales, currently at $51 billion worldwide and expected to hit $87 billion by
2010. Industrial scale protein production technologies are currently being
applied to the development of a wide variety of protein-based therapeutics,
including hormones, growth factors, antibodies and cytokine modulators, to
treat a vast range of human diseases. But these drugs have a relatively
short plasma half life. As a result, several physical, genetic and chemical
approaches have been developed to extend the plasma half life of the
therapeutic proteins while not compromising efficacy or introducing safety
issues (immunogenicity and other off-mechanism toxicities). The most
successful of these approaches has been chemical conjugation with
monomethoxypolyethylene glycol (PEG), amino acid engineering leading to
altered protein glycosylation and the addition of non-biologically active
"carrier" domains.

 G-CSF for First Follow-on Biologic Product
mi pare niente di nuovo ?!?! o sbaglio.............

 mi pare niente di nuovo ?!?! o sbaglio.............
è uno spin-off per rivendere i risultati delle proprie sperimentazioni e 
soprattutto svilupparle finanziando  una nuova società, costi che non 
dovrebbero ricadere sui bilanci di Ctic e che dovrebbero essere condivisi da 
altri.... (investitori diversi, anche da Novartis, che possono entrare, lo 
spin off viene fatto apposta per quello);
oh, poi il reale singificato finanziario lo avremo capito stasera alle ore 
22,00 (o anche un po' prima...) :-D

 mi pare niente di nuovo ?!?! o sbaglio.............
la notizia davvero nuova che potrebbe uscire a  giorni è, invece, il nome 
della società con cui fanno la merger: infatti alcuni giorni fa la Murador, 
portavoce di Ctic, ha comunicato che , accantonata Dor, CTIC ha avviato una 
due diligence per valutare se rilevare (o fondersi con) una piccola società 
biopharma che ha un prodotto vicinissimo all'approvazione (ma a cui manca la 
struttura per la commercializzazione, strutttura che invece potrebbe avere 
Ctic con l'appoggio della big Novartis).
vedremo;
di sicuro attorno alla società il movimento non manca, siamo ormai ai mesi 
decisivi 

 decisivi
sperem io ho incrementato venerdi a 4.01 graficamente e' matura da tempo
vediamo se facciamo le vacanze in polinesia o all' idroscalo ehehehe

 ha scritto nel messaggio

tecnologia che permette di sperimentare velocemente (già si saperva)
manca l'informazione su chi deterrà il 30%
spin off + partnership, no ipo


mercato diffidente
si aspetta la notizia dell'interim analysis sul PIX

 meditate gente, meditate...
la conferenza è a Montecarlo

ECCO IL SITO
http://www.aequusbiopharma.com/