Sprint Bioscience enters into research collaboration on blood cancer
As published in a press release by the company, June 29 2016, Sprint Bioscience AB (publ) has signed an agreement with the Center for Hematology and Regenerative Medicine (HERM) at the Karolinska Institute in which the parties will evaluate Sprint Bioscience drug candidates for the treatment of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), one of the most common forms of blood cancer. The partnership enables, at an early stage, the identification of groups of patients, who may benefit from a future drug.
AML is a collective name for a group of blood cancers. The disease strongly inhibits the normal formation of blood which in turn leads to symptoms that are life-threatening if left untreated. About 18,300 new cases are diagnosed with AML each year in Europe. Dr. Julian Walfridsson and his research group at the Center for Hematology and Regenerative Medicine (HERM) at the Karolinska Institute in Huddinge are focused on trying to identify new therapeutic targets for combating AML. Julian and his team have developed a method to evaluate new therapies in patient derived AML samples.
"Together with Professor Sören Lehmann at Uppsala University we have developed a method for evaluating therapeutic targets in AML. We use cancer cells donated from patients diagnosed with the disease", says Julian. "With our collaboration with Sprint Bioscience, I see a good potential to find new therapies for AML," adds Julian.
The research collaboration between Sprint Bioscience and Julian's research group aims to evaluate early drug candidates for efficacy in these samples. The results generated are of high clinical relevance as they come directly from the patients.
” With this partnership, we hope not only to get a deeper biological understanding of our projects, but also to provide a more complete package to our customers," said Anders Åberg, CEO of Sprint Bioscience. "Tailor-made treatments are the future and here we can, at an early stage identify which patients are considered for treatment. This can remarkably reduce the cost for later clinical trials, something our customers value.”
The work will be conducted on HERM´s and Sprint Biosciences respective research laboratories at Novum in Huddinge, Sweden.
About Sprint Bioscience
Sprint Bioscience AB (publ) is part of the new Swedish drug development industry. The company has the goal of improving the time- and resource-efficiency of developing drug candidates for the global pharmaceutical market within the cancer and diabetes areas. Sprint Bioscience is based in Stockholm. Sprint Bioscience is listed on NASDAQ First North Premier, trading under the ticker SPRINT.
Further information can be found on the company’s web site at www.sprintbioscience.se.
Certified Advisor is Erik Penser Bank, www.penser.se.
About HERM
HERM was created in 2011 with the aim to bring together research teams in hematology and hematopoietic cell therapy at the Karolinska Institute in a new translational and well equipped research environment.
The establishment of HERM has been made possible through support from the Karolinska University Hospital, the Wallenberg Institute of Regenerative Medicine (WIRM) and from the Department of Medicine, Karolinska Univeristy Hospital, Huddinge. HERM is a platform-based research environment and with the support of WIRM they have established a world class flow cytometry unit.
HERM currently has 15 research groups which range from basic research to clinical translational research.
Further information is available on HERMs website; www.ki.se/en/medh/herm
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