H3 Biomedicine and Selvita Announce Strategic Collaboration to Develop Precision Cancer Medicines

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and KRAKOW, Poland, Sept. 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- H3 Biomedicine Inc., a biopharmaceutical company specializing in the discovery and development of precision oncology treatments, and Selvita (PL: SLV), one of the largest drug discovery companies in Eastern Europe, announced today that they have entered into a strategic collaboration to develop breakthrough precision medicines for cancers. The companies will seek to validate the importance and druggability of several kinase targets in specific genetic contexts and to generate multiple novel drug candidates against those targets. 

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Recent advances in human cancer genomics have revealed novel target opportunities that will enable new approaches to developing cancer medicines. H3 Biomedicine has built extensive and proprietary target acumen. It has also implemented a set of unique tools and research engines in the areas of cancer genomics, bioinformatics and target validation to lend biological insight to genomic findings. These capabilities will help to accelerate its collaborative drug discovery and development efforts. Selvita started its first kinase discovery programs in 2008 and, over the last five years, has built a premium scientific team with one of the world's most robust kinase discovery platforms. Together, the two companies have the know-how to leverage data from the new target opportunities revealed through cancer genomics.

"Our goal at H3 Biomedicine is to – in a very focused way – utilize the genomic information from public and proprietary data sets to identify and validate highly relevant cancer genes and to develop effective therapies against those targets," stated Markus Warmuth, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer, H3 Biomedicine. "Both H3 Biomedicine and Selvita value early validation of drug targets to achieve preclinical proof of concept followed by translation of these findings into novel therapies for targeted patient populations. This collaboration is a key tool in our arsenal as it brings Selvita's kinase biology platform and medicinal chemistry capabilities together with H3's expertise in target validation, bioinformatics and genomics analysis. We look forward to working with Selvita to ultimately bring efficacious medicines to patients."

Pawel Przewiezlikowski, Chief Executive Officer of Selvita, said, "We are delighted to enter into this collaboration with H3 Biomedicine, and to apply our kinase discovery platform to jointly advance target discovery. The unique target identification and validation competences of H3 will bring our discovery efforts to a new level."

Krzysztof Brzozka, Chief Scientific Officer of Selvita, added "Both H3 and Selvita teams have always strived to identify novel therapeutic solutions for people living with cancer and we are very pleased that we can now join forces. This collaboration will enable us to significantly increase the breadth and depth of our pipeline."

About H3 Biomedicine Inc.
H3 Biomedicine is a biopharmaceutical company specializing in the discovery and development of oncology treatments. Using modern synthetic chemistry, chemical biology and human genetics, the company seeks to bring the next generation of cancer treatments to market with the goal of improving the lives of patients. H3 Biomedicine is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Visit http://www.h3biomedicine.com/ for more information.

About Selvita
Selvita is a Polish biotechnology company engaged in the discovery and development of breakthrough medicines to treat oncology, CNS and autoimmune disorders, as well as provision of drug discovery services. It was established in 2007 and currently employs 162 people, including 53 PhDs. Selvita has currently several internal projects at early or late discovery stage and is expected to move its first candidates to the clinic in 2014. The most advanced programs at Selvita are SEL24, a pre-clinical Pim kinase inhibitor, with multiple indications in hematopoietic tumors and SEL120, first-in-class small molecule inhibitor of cyclin dependent kinase CDK8. Other innovative projects currently in development include SEL141, an early stage discovery program of DYRK1A kinase inhibitors with therapeutic potential in the treatment targeting Alzheimer's disease and Down syndrome, SEL201 – novel small molecule MNK1/2 inhibitors in oncology, cancer metabolism platform and inflammasome platform.  Drug discovery clients of Selvita include more than fifty large and medium-sized pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies from USA and Europe. Selvita is listed on the NewConnect market of the Warsaw Stock Exchange in Poland (SLV). Additional information about Selvita can be found on http://www.selvita.com/

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SOURCE H3 Biomedicine Inc.