TargeGen, Inc.

SAN DIEGO, Jan. 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Plexium, Inc. (Plexium), a leading next-generation targeted protein degradation (TPD) company, today announced the appointment of Michael Martin, Ph.D. as President and Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the Board of Directors. Dr. Martin joins Plexium following his 12-year tenure at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, serving most recently as the Global Head of the Center for External Innovation where he was a key member of Takeda's Leadership Team. While in this role, he was responsible for external research & development activities including Business Development, Search & Evaluation, Strategy & Operations, Academic Alliances, and Takeda Ventures, Inc. "Mike brings tremendous experience to Plexium as a scientific executive, global R&D leader, venture investor and corporate board member. He has led the strategic, global development of highly innovative therapies, with significant expertise in accelerating and establishing valuable pipelines driven by novel biology and drug targets," said Mike Grey, Executive Chairman of Plexium. "I look forward to working with Mike to advance our clinical-stage pipeline and progressing more TPD programs against important cancer targets into the clinic." Dr. Martin added, "I am proud to join the established team at Plexium and am eager to work together towards developing transformative therapies for difficult to treat cancers and other diseases. I believe that Plexium is well positioned for success with the recent advancement of PLX-4545 into Phase 1 and the advancing preclinical pipeline of small molecule monovalent degraders of SMARCA2, CDK2 and c-Raf. I am excited to lead Plexium and continue to build a leading TPD company focused on improving patients' lives." Dr. Martin joined Takeda in 2012 and prior to his most recent role, he was President of Takeda Ventures, Inc., Takeda's corporate venture capital company. Dr. Martin also previously held executive and scientific roles with Intellikine Inc. (acquired by Takeda), TargeGen, Inc. (acquired by Sanofi-Aventis), Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (acquired by Pfizer) and Monsanto Corporation (acquired by Bayer). Dr. Martin holds a Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from University of Illinois, a M.S. in Analytical Chemistry and B.S. degrees in Chemistry and Mathematics. Dr. Martin has extensive experience as a corporate board member, for both private and publicly traded companies, and has acted as an advisor to several notable biotech investment funds in the United States, Europe, and Japan. About Plexium Inc. Plexium Inc. is the premier, next-generation Targeted Protein Degradation (TPD) company seeking to discover monovalent direct degraders and molecular glues to address difficult-to-drug targets for the treatment of cancer. The company's proprietary drug discovery platform is designed to identify novel small molecules that induce selective degradation of pathogenic proteins through E3 ligase mediated proteasomal degradation. Plexium is advancing a pipeline of novel targeted monovalent direct degraders and molecular glues for the treatment of cancer and has also entered into a strategic collaboration with AbbVie to expand the potential of TPD to neurological conditions. For more information, visit and engage with us on LinkedIn. Plexium Investor and Media Contact: Amy Conrad Juniper Point [email protected] 858-366-3243 SOURCE Plexium

Celgene has recently announced that it is set to acquire Impact Biomedicines and its drug fedratinib, which will be added to Celgene’s therapies for myelofibrosis (a type of bone marrow cancer) and polycythemia vera. Further payment opportunities will arise upon the drug’s sales performance worldwide. Celgene will pay approximately $1.1 billion upfront and up to $1.25 billion in contingent payments based on regulatory approval milestones for myelofibrosis. The acquisition is one of the largest in the company’s history. "Myelofibrosis is a disease with high unmet medical need as the number of patients who are ineligible for or become resistant to existing therapy continues to increase," commented Nadim Ahmed, President, Haematology and Oncology for Celgene. See also "We believe fedratinib is uniquely positioned as a potential treatment for myelofibrosis and it provides strategic options for us to build leadership in this disease with luspatercept and other pipeline assets." Impact’s Chief Executive, John Hood, is one of the co-inventors of fedratinib when working at TargeGen Inc. Now involved in the sale of fedratinib for the second time, Hood has observed its potential for treating patients with myelofibrosis. “We launched Impact Biomedicines and based on our thorough review of the data, fedratinib presents a compelling risk benefit profile in both treatment-naïve patients and patients who are resistant or intolerant to other JAK2 therapies,” he said. "We believe Celgene is the ideal organisation to follow through on our mission of maximizing fedratinib's potential for patients with myelofibrosis."

$710M Gamble Fails as Celgene Terminates Two Phase The company said it will acquire Impact Biomedicines and its JAK inhibitor program targeting myelofibrosis. Celgene began the week of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference with a $7 billion announcement . The company said it will acquire San Diego-based Impact Biomedicines and its JAK inhibitor program targeting myelofibrosis. Privately-held Impact is developing fedratinib, a highly selective JAK2 kinase inhibitor, for patients with treatment-naïve myelofibrosis, a bone marrow disorder that disrupts normal production of blood cells. Impact picked up fedratinib from Sanofi , which cast off the drug in 2013 after patients developed Wernicke’s encephalopathy. Impact Chief Executive Officer John Hood co-developed fedratinib while he served as head of R&D at TargeGen before that company and the drug were acquired by Sanofi. On Sunday, Hood said Celgene is the “ideal organization” to maximize fedratinib’s potential for patients with myelofibrosis. Celgene made the announcement on Sunday. It will pay approximately $1.1 billion upfront up to $1.25 billion in contingent payments based on regulatory approval milestones for myelofibrosis. The company said additional milestone payments, that would allow the sale price to hit $7 billion, will depend on regulatory approvals in additional indications and sales-based milestones. Those milestones have maximum of $4.5 billion due if annual net sales of Impact’s treatments exceed $5 billion, according to terms of the deal released by Celgene. In the recently completed Phase III trial, JAKARTA-1 fedratinib demonstrated statistically significant improvements in the primary and secondary endpoints of splenic response and total symptom score, respectively, the company said. In an exploratory subgroup analysis, these improvements were observed regardless of a patient’s baseline platelet count. “Myelofibrosis is a disease with high unmet medical need as the number of patients who are ineligible for or become resistant to existing therapy continues to increase,” Nadim Ahmed , Celgene’s head of hematology and oncology, said in a statement. “We believe fedratinib is uniquely positioned as a potential treatment for myelofibrosis and it provides strategic options for us to build leadership in this disease with luspatercept and other pipeline assets.” There were some issues last year with fedratinib that caused the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to place a clinical hold on one of Impact’s trials. In the single-arm Phase II trial JAKARTA-2, fedratinib demonstrated clinically meaningful improvements in splenic response and total symptom score in patients who were resistant or intolerant of Incyte Pharmaceutical ’s Jakafi (ruxolitinib), a JAK1/JAK2 inhibitor. JAKARTA-2 was halted prematurely due to some safety, but the clinical hold was removed in August 2017. That hold left Impact with a drug supported by data across 18 clinical trials. Impact has plans to New Drug Application with the FDA in the middle part of this year. The company said based on the reported benefit risk pro fedratinib from the two clinical trials, regulatory applications in myelofibrosis are planned beginning in the middle of 2018. John Newman, a healthcare analyst with Canacord , said in a note that Canacord views the Impact Biomedicines acquisition as a “carefully structured transaction with substantial upside assuming FDA approval.”