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The activist attack on Ziopharm Oncology $ ZIOP, which turned into an ugly and bitter public feud, has come to an end.
Two of the three out of 3. 3% minority investor WaterMill Asset Management Corp. . will join Ziopharm’s board of directors after shareholders receive the required 50% of the vote, WaterMill said Thursday morning. In addition, a majority of Ziopharm shareholders voted for Chairman Scott Tarriff to be recalled.
In particular, WaterMill’s founder Robert Postma, who first initiated the attack in early November, is not joining the board despite getting enough support from investors, WaterMill said. The board of directors of Ziopharm is limited to eight members and previously had seven members before the voting deadline, so that only the two who received higher votes can join Tarriff’s dismissal.
In early November, WaterMill began its attack to replace three board members and Tarriff with three people: Postma, Jaime Vieser and Holger Weis. Two board members approached by WaterMill resigned in the weeks that followed, with one remaining.
“We greet the gentlemen. Vieser and Weis as the newest members of the board of directors of Ziopharm, « said Ziopharm in a statement. “We would also like to thank Scott Tarriff, Board Member since 2015 and Chairman since 2018, for the many positive contributions and tireless commitment to the patients we hope to be caring for. ”
Full voting results won’t be available until Ziopharm files an update with the SEC and the timing of the 8-K remains unclear, a company spokesman told Endpoints News. Ziopharm declined to comment on the vote and status of Postma’s position beyond the press release.
In a statement, Postma said that Vieser and Weis are fully committed to leaving this competition behind and immediately helping the board to find the right way forward. He later added:
While we anticipate many supporting shareholders will be disappointed that our entire plan is not currently on the Board of Directors, WaterMill is working constructively with Ziopharm to ensure that the message sent by a critical mass of investors is respected. WaterMill continues to strive to always do what is best for Ziopharm.
It is not yet clear whether WaterMill continues to press for the last person to step down and be replaced by Postma, or if that move falls under what Postma describes as « best » for the company.
Although the minority investor officially began its attack in early November, the Ziopharm brouhaha was due to months of simmering feelings about the company’s direction. WaterMill and other investors objected to a former board member at Ziopharm’s annual meeting that summer, and that person was replaced in September.
Then the offer to replace the board began, and WaterMill tried to get all three of Postma, Vieser and Weis up to really fix the ship. At the start of the attack, Ziopharm shares had fallen around 50% since early 2020. WaterMill alleged that the board, as it was then, responded to complaints with « outright contempt » and appointed the displaced board member’s chief, despite saying it would hire an outside firm to conduct a search.
From then on, it only got uglier when Ziopharm attempted to label one of WaterMill’s nominees – Weis – as uniquely unqualified to serve on the board. The company cited DemeRx biotechnology filings for bankruptcy in 2018, which, according to Ziopharm Weis’ history of corporate misconduct, revealed.
WaterMill countered by saying that Ziopharm had participated in a « desperate smear campaign on the low street » and quoted statements from two former DemeRx executives who vouched for Weis. Although Ziopharm’s board of directors had seen a heavy churn over the past six months, Tarriff and CEO Laurence Cooper had not replaced any of the outgoing members with WaterMill nominees.
Ziopharm stock prices have not fully recovered since a patient died in a gene therapy study in 2016 after developing intracranial bleeding 15 days after starting treatment. The death was considered unrelated to treatment.
Then, in 2018, Ziopharm was forced to put the brakes on CAR-T therapy when the FDA set up its Phase I study of a treatment capable of expressing CD-19, IL-, in 2 days could be clinically deferred. 15 and a safety switch for CD-19 / positive leukemia and lymphoma. However, earlier this year Ziopharm saw some early, positive overall survival data for their controlled IL-12 treatment for glioblastoma. The company also intends to combine this experimental drug with Regeneron’s Libtayo.
The approval of two T-cell therapies with chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) for the treatment of B-cell malignancies underscores the potential of cell-based immunotherapy to achieve impressive long-term clinical responses¹. These products are autologous in nature and involve collecting immune cells from the patient that are used to make the CAR T cells. Once manufactured, these CAR T cells are re-infused into the patient as a clinical product. However, autologous therapy poses significant challenges, including product production time (which is currently weeks) during which the patient’s disease can progress and the highly variable quality of the starting material which can lead to manufacturing defects.
As the FDA was preparing to approve the first Covid-19 vaccine last week, AstraZeneca was sending its U.S. investigators instructions on what to do if some of their volunteers suddenly have the choice to stay on the UK pharmaceutical trial or to get an FDA-approved vaccine.
The document, the contents of which were described by two investigators to Endpoints News and the existence of which has been confirmed by another, states that investigators are allowed to individually unblind participants who are eligible for the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine and let them know which arm of AstraZeneca they were studying in. The participant can then decide whether to receive the approved vaccine. Regardless of their choice, they are allowed to stay in the study for long-term follow-up.
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Since joining UK drug maker GlaxoSmithKline in 2018, CSO Hal Barron has worked to enhance the company’s oncology portfolio, with a particular focus on the discovery of « synthetic lethality ». Now GSK is putting much of the change on the flip side of coin cells – cell viability – for a range of potential therapies outside of cancer.
GSK will lead a Series A funding round with undisclosed cash for Adrestia Therapeutics, a biotechnology that hopes to develop drugs that target the « synthetic viability » of dysfunctional or dying cells in a variety of therapeutic areas said GSK on Friday.
The FDA’s Vaccines Advisory Panel unanimously voted, with one abstention, on Thursday to recommend an emergency clearance for Moderna’s mRNA-based Covid-19 shot, which the agency is expected to issue the EEA on Friday. The agency does not have to listen to the committee but usually does.
« The evidence that has been scrutinized for this vaccine far outweighs any problems we’ve seen, » said Hayley Gans, Stanford pediatrician for infectious diseases. “And I think it really helps us move forward with the pandemic and finally find a safe and effective route to herd immunity. ”
John Connolly, the new Chief Scientist at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, has a new mission on his plate.
Connolly has been hired as interim CEO at 3T Biosciences, a lively startup in the Bay Area that has embraced all of cell therapy 2. 0 movement with the help of 2 tech billionaires who have shown a keen interest in cancer drug development: Peter Thiel and Sean Parker, who gave his name and direct commitment to his nonprofit organization of the same name.
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As a global pandemic hit, the life science industry responded in record time to calls for vaccines and therapies that will save millions of lives. This response was possible due to continued investment of venture capital by the venture capital industry in life science companies, which peaked in 2020. Great scientists, visionary leaders, and highly skilled investors who supported new scientific discoveries and brave entrepreneurs led to the innovative technologies from BioNTech and Moderna that contributed to the first Covid-19 vaccines.
Even when his tenure at Merck comes to an end, Roger Perlmutter is still not done with turning and trading.
Less than a month after Merck bet on OncoImmune’s experimental Covid-19 drug for a $ 425 million buyout, Merck announced Friday morning that it had more than $ 1 billion to collaborate with small San Diego Biotech Janux Therapeutics will cut T-cell activists. The couple will team up with two cancer targets selected by Merck, with Janux receiving up to $ 500. 5 million prepayments and milestone payments per goal.
After issues with slow registration and reducing study size by about 15. 000 people, according to Johnson & Johnson, a phase III study testing the single dose of Covid-19 is fully registered.
About 45. 000 participants have signed up for ENSEMBLE, which J&J says is sufficient given the high incidence of Covid-19 in the general population in which the study is being conducted. Initially, J&J wanted 60. Enrolled 000 volunteers in the study, which was to be the largest of its kind.
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The latest cell therapy program for the Novartis pipeline has failed its first phase III test for ventilation-dependent Covid-19 patients with moderate to severe acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Mesoblast, the Australian biotechnology that Novartis awarded US $ 1. On a contract worth more than 2 billion a month ago, it was reported that the Data Security Monitoring Board recommended that new patients be stopped and that the study be completed early. The therapy should have reduced 30-day mortality by 43% in addition to maximum care in order to meet the primary endpoint. After reviewing data from 180 patients, the DSMB concluded that this mark is unlikely to be reached.
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Bioscience & Technology Business CenterThe University of KansasLawrence, Kansas
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ENDPOINTS from the John Carroll & team – all the news at 11:30 am ET
EARLY EDITION by Arsalan Arif – concise links and news at 7:15 a.m. ET
ZIOPHARM ONCOLOGY INC, NASDAQ: ZIOP, Board of Directors, Finance, Asset Management Removal of Chairman
. . Associated title :
– Last change from -2. 47% in ZIOPHARM Oncology Inc. . (ZIOP) market price could lead to pleasant surprises
– Activist holder wins Ziopharm Oncology Board seats
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– Declaration on WaterMill Asset Management – Questions about the consent request from Ziopharm Oncology
Ref: https://endpts.com
