SW: “Peregrine’s goal in partnering with these immuno-oncology leaders is to define the broader scope of utility for bavituximab. Through these collaborations, we are actively identifying a range of indications & treatments that will benefit from combination therapy with bavituximab. This will undoubtedly yields important findings in the near-term that will continue to build shareholder value. We continue our dialog with a number of other world leading pharmaceutical organizations and believe that bavituximab will continue to generate partnering interest. I will now turn the call over to Rob Garnick, Peregrine’s Head of Regulatory Affairs, who’ll discuss our drug mfg. & regulatory activities.”
===Preceded by: SW: “We were very pleased to announce our collaboration with AstraZeneca in August [8-24-15: http://tinyurl.com/owlxpsf ] and were even more delighted to announce the expansion of that agreement in October [10-15-15: http://tinyurl.com/q79bkam ]. We believe that AstraZeneca’s enthusiasm for this program is based on the promise & potential of bavituximab. Copious amounts of positive data have consistently demonstrated bavituximab’s therapeutic value & ability to provide solutions to the limitations of currently available treatments. Today, checkpoint inhibitors are primarily effective in patients with high PD-L1 expression, a minority of all patients being treated. However, translational findings have demonstrated that bavituximab is effective in patients with the lowest PD-L1, PD-1 expressions, highlighting the potential bavituximab to convert patients with the low expression levels who do not respond to anti-PD-1 treatments into responders.”
SW: “In addition to AstraZeneca, such data have also been the impetus for our ongoing collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer[5-21-15: http://tinyurl.com/qxu4w2x ], which is evaluating combinations of bavituximab with other checkpoint inhibitors & immune stimulatory agents for the purpose of developing new & increasingly effective anti-cancer treatments. It has also been the driver for our ongoing work with the Univ. of Texas SW, as well as a number of other ISTs.”