Here's a suspect one to add to the portfolio. The price is near 52 week highs, and it's a dot.commie buying into a Canadian biotech company . . .
>>Monday May 13, 9:40 am Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: EDUVERSE.COM
EDUVERSE.COM Announces Biotechnology Acquisition - GeneMax Pharmaceuticals Inc.
RENO, Nev., May 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Planned Acquisition: EDUVERSE.COM ("the Company") (OTC Bulletin Board: EDVS - News) is pleased to announce that on May 10, 2002, the Company executed a Letter of Intent to acquire a 100% interest in the outstanding common shares of GeneMax Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Delaware Corporation ("GeneMax"). GeneMax is a biotechnology company specializing in the discovery and development of immunotherapeutics aimed at the treatment and eradication of cancer, and therapies for infectious diseases, autoimmune disorders and transplant tissue rejection.
About GeneMax: GeneMax was formed in 1999, along with a British Columbia, Canada subsidiary. An exclusive world-wide License Agreement was signed with the University of British Columbia ("UBC") in March 2000 for two patented technologies: 1. a cell-based peptide transfer assay and 2. GeneMax's lead product, a cancer immuno-therapy based on restoration of antigen presentation through Transporters Associated With Antigen-Processing technologies ("TAP"). To date, GeneMax has raised approximately US $2.0 million in funding. An estimated US $5 million is required over the next two years for the balance of pre-clinical development and the beginning of Phase I clinical trials for the TAP product.
GeneMax Lead Product Candidate -- An Immunotherapy for Cancer. The global market for effective cancer treatments is large. Immunotherapies represent potential treatments for metastatic cancer, a huge unmet need in the area of oncology. GeneMax's lead product is a therapeutic that enables a body's immune system to recognize the cancer cells as "foreign", and kill them. The technology is aimed at a group of cancers that include lung cancer, liver cancer, kidney cancer, head and neck cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer, and cervical cancer. These cancers are characterized by defects in the cellular, antigen presentation pathway, which results in the cancers becoming invisible to the immune system. This allows the cancers to continue to proliferate and eventually spread. GeneMax's lead technology increases the activity of the antigen presentation pathway thus providing sufficient information to the immune system to cause rejection and elimination of tumors from the body. The proof of principle was established by curing mice bearing metastatic small cell lung cancer tumors. This study was published in Nature Biotechnology (Vol. 18, pp 515-520, May 2000). The technology was further validated in melanoma. The competitive advantages include efficacy against secondary cancerous growths elsewhere in the body, no restrictions on the genetics of the tumors or individuals, non-toxicity to normal cells, and being complementary and synergistic with other therapeutics. Development Stage: Pre-clinical, preparing for Phase I Clinical Trials.
GeneMax Drug Discovery -- Peptide Transfer Assay: The peptide transfer assay is a novel and sophisticated cell-based assay designed to evaluate compounds and drugs for their ability to stimulate or suppress the immune response. Its application is to identify compounds effective in the treatment of cancer, infectious diseases, and autoimmune diseases. This technology is expected to be of significant interest to pharmaceutical companies, companies with natural product libraries, anti-sense or gene libraries or proprietary rights to chemical compounds (e.g. combinatorial chemistry companies). Development Stage: Ready for development for high-throughput screening and partnering.
GeneMax Notable Milestones:
-- May 2000: Results of GeneMax's TAP immuno-therapy technology,
successfully tested in animals against small cell lung cancer, were
published in Nature Biotechnology, a prestigious industry journal.
-- Fall 2000: GeneMax creates a Scientific Advisory Board including
Dr. James Hogg, Dr. Victor Ling and Dr. Bernard Moss.
-- June 2001: GeneMax Signed a collaboration agreement with Salus
Therapeutics of Salt Lake City relating to their anti-sense
technology and GeneMax's Peptide Transfer Assay, with the object of
identifying compounds which block TAP expression, especially for
organ transplant applications.
-- January 2001: GeneMax joined CANVAC (Canadian Network for Vaccines
and Immunotherapeutics of Cancer and Chronic Viral Diseases), an
association of government, universities and biotechnology companies,
as a corporate affiliate, resulting in a grant for funding of part
of GeneMax's TAP program.
-- April 2001: GeneMax TAP technology was corroborated in the
April 26, 2001 Nature journal paper "IFNg and lymphocytes prevent
primary tumor development and shape tumor immunogenicity".
-- July 2001: Science Council of British Columbia grant approved for
prostate cancer and TAP project.
-- March 2002: U.S. Patent Office granted for use of TAP-1 against all
tumors
GeneMax Management and Directors:
Ronald L. Handford, BASc, MBA, President & CEO and Director. Mr. Handford was previously CEO of a CDNX-listed company, Investment Officer at the International Finance Corporation in Washington D.C. and Vice President at Barclays Bank.
Dr. Wilfred Jefferies, Chief Scientific Officer and Director. Dr. Jefferies received his D.Phil. from Oxford and is a Professor of Medical Genetics, Microbiology and Immunology, and a member of the Biomedical Research Centre and the Biotechnology Laboratory at UBC. Dr. Jefferies was also the founder of Synapse Technologies Inc.
Dr. Julia Levy, Chairman. Past President & CEO of QLT Inc. Dr. Levy was recently appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. QLT progressed under her leadership from R&D through FDA approval and commercialization of Visudyne(TM).
James D. Davidson, Director. Mr. Davidson is founder of Agora Publishing and a director of several private companies.
Alan P. Lindsay, Director. Mr. Lindsay is Chairman and CEO of MIV Therapeutics Inc., a medical device and drug delivery company and past Chairman and CEO of Azco Mining Inc., an AMEX-listed company.
Dr. Calvin R. Stiller, Director. Dr. Stiller is a Professor of Medicine, University of Western Ontario and co-Director of Immunology at the John P. Robarts Research Institute, London, Ontario. He co-founded two venture capital funds, the Canadian Medical Discoveries Fund and the Canadian Science and Technology Growth Fund
Dr. Timothy Vitalis, Director of Research and Development. Prior to joining GeneMax he was a Senior Scientist at Synapse Technologies Inc., a Vancouver based biotechnology company, where he was responsible for pre-clinical development.
The acquisition will require the issue of approximately 11,500,000 restricted common shares. Subsequent to completion, the Company contemplates a name, trading symbol, and CUSIP number change commensurate with its new business direction. As of the date of this news release, the Company's common shares trade under the symbol "EDVS" on the OTCBB.<<
snip
Cheers, Tuck |
