Elf Zone Inc — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: NCI

Description

SUMMARY The proposed supplement funds participation of amember team from Elf ZoneIncin the I Corpsat NIH training programThe team will receive training in commercialization that will facilitate the successful development of a research discovery to a commercially available therapy for the treatment of high risk pediatric and adult leukemiaIt will also serve to extend the national innovation ecosystem to the team membersrespective academic institutions and companiesThe ProjectCurrent standard of care treatments show poor efficacy against B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia with overexpression of the cytokine receptorCRLFCRLFB ALLUsing a cell mediated delivery systemthe Principal Investigator sPI slaboratory at Loma Linda UniversityLLUidentified a cytokine that essentially eliminates CRLFB ALL cells in vivo in preclinical patient derived xenograft models of CRLFB ALLA recombinant form of the cytokine is proposed as a novel biologic to treat CRLFB ALLLLU filed a provisional patent applicationAprilcovering the use of the cytokine as a biologic to treat CRLFB ALLElf ZoneInchas secured an option to license exclusively this technology from LLUThe use of this biologic is anticipated to be in combination with standard of care therapyCurrent therapies used to augment standard of care therapy to treat high risk leukemialike CRLFB ALLtypically cost $$per caseIn the United States alonethere is a total ofnew cases per year of CRLFB ALL with larger numbers in Central and South America due to the five fold increased incidence in the Hispanic populationThe TeamThe three team members selected for participation in I Corpshave a demonstrated history of successful scientific collaboration as evidenced by co authored publicationThe team brings the C level decision making abilitytechnical expertiseand industry expertise that will allow us to leverage I Corpstraining to commercialize the results of our research discoveries to benefit patientsKimberly PaynePhDDrPayne is the Chief Executive OfficerCEOof Elf ZoneIncand ownsof the companyShe is an Associate Professor at LLU and serves as the university PI for the parent SBIRThe therapeutic activity of the cytokine biologic was discovered in her laboratory at LLUDrPayne brings C level decision making ability to the teamJacqueline SCoatsBSMPH candidateMsCoats serves as the Chief Scientific OfficerCFOof Elf ZoneIncand led the patient derived xenograft studies that identified the therapeutic activity of the cytokine biologic in DrPayne s LLU laboratoryShe brings scientific expertise to the teamBen Van HandelPhDDrVan Handel has co founded two start up companies and is currently the CEO of a company that is developing small inhibitors to modulate cytokine signalingHe has overseen company formationlicensing of technology from UCLAdeveloping management and advisory teams and successful seed fundingHe brings industry expertise to the teamEach member of the team is committed to the time requirements of the program NARRATIVE The proposed supplement will fund participation of amember team from Elf ZoneIncin the I Corpsat NIH training programThe team will receive training in commercialization that will facilitate the successful development of a research discovery to a commercially available therapy for the treatment of high risk pediatric and adult leukemiaIt will also serve to extend the national innovation ecosystem to the team membersrespective academic institutions and other collaborating companies