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Secarna Pharmaceuticals successfully hosted Inaugural Industry Expert Meeting and Networking Event for the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society (OTS) in Munich

Wednesday, 19 September 2018 05:50 AM

Secarna Pharmaceuticals GmbH & Co. KG

  • Secarna provided a platform for discussion and information on antisense therapeutics with highly regarded experts from industry and academia
  • Event highlighted importance of antisense therapeutics as third pillar of drug development, in addition to small molecules and monoclonal antibodies
  • Latest generation antisense technologies such as Secarna's LNAplusTM are going to lead to innovative, highly specific, safe and efficacious therapies for challenging or currently undruggable targets

MUNICH/MARTINSRIED, GERMANY / ACCESSWIRE / September 19, 2018 / Secarna Pharmaceuticals, a new breed biopharmaceutical company focusing on the discovery and development of antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapies to address challenging or previously undruggable targets in a number of organ systems, announced today that it has successfully hosted the inaugural Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society (OTS) industry expert meeting and networking event in Munich titled "Oligonucleotides - Paving the path for a new generation of therapeutics". The event took place on September 18 at the Innovations- und Gründerzentrum Biotechnologie (IZB) in Martinsried and featured top-level speakers highlighting the enormous importance of new therapeutics based on antisense oligonucleotides (ASO) as the third pillar of drug development, in addition to small molecules and monoclonal antibodies.

A total of 63 participants used the opportunity to get cutting-edge information on the discovery and development of ASO therapeutics in talks delivered by Rainer Wessel, Former Executive Management of Ganymed Pharmaceuticals AG/Astellas Pharma Inc., Frank Jaschinski, Chief Scientific Officer at Secarna Pharmaceuticals GmbH & Co. KG, Christian Schetter, Chief Executive Officer at Rigontec GmbH / an MSD Company , Kirsten Vonde from Granzer Regulatory Consulting & Services and Thomas Rupp from Thomas Rupp Consulting (CMC). Afterwards, the speakers and participants discussed the future of antisense technologies in a Q&A session.

Frank Jaschinski, Chief Scientific Officer at Secarna Pharmaceuticals GmbH & Co. KG, stated: "Oligonucleotide-based drugs such as antisense oligonucleotides have a great potential to become a major therapeutic modality complementary to small molecules and protein or antibody-based drugs. The industry faces its technical challenges but addressing these challenges results in safe and efficacious antisense drugs for challenging or currently undruggable targets."

Kirsten Vonde from Granzer Regulatory Consulting & Services, said: "We see many interesting developments in clinical and preclinical studies. Let's keep our fingers crossed that they make it over the hurdle." Vonde introduced the audience to the regulatory aspects of antisense oligonucleotide development and how to proceed within the regulatory process for clinical development. And Christian Schetter, Chief Executive Officer at Rigontec GmbH / an MSD Company, added: "The ultimate success of a technology will be to reach patients and play a major role in the marketplace. An acquisition by a large pharma player with significant resources in global development significantly increases the probability of such an outcome and is therefore a success" in his talk about the development of oligonucleotides in the clinic and shared Rigontec's successes and key learnings throughout the acquisition by MSD.

Highly-relevant insights into a rapidly growing pharmaceutical market segment

"We are proud to have hosted this first networking event of this kind in Munich and to have provided an impressive platform for discussion and information exchange with such highly regarded antisense therapeutics experts. The large number of participants, the interesting presentations and lively discussions reflect the quality of antisense oligonucleotide research in Germany," said Jonas Renz, Managing Director and Co-founder of Secarna. "Over the last three years, we have seen a significant increase in antisense drug approvals which, together with a meaningful number of clinical development candidates, impressively portray the increasing importance of this therapeutic modality."

The event was supported by the Oligonulecotide Therapeutics Society, Secarna Pharmaceuticals GmbH & Co. KG, BioM (network organization of the biotechnology sector in Munich and in Bavaria), the sector association BIO Deutschland and MC Services AG.

For further information on the event and antisense oligonucleotides, please contact Secarna at [email protected].

Secarna's third generation LNAplusTM platform addresses the industry's technical challenges

With multiple innovative antisense therapies in various stages of preclinical development for a broad range of therapeutic indications as well as the Company's proprietary, customized, in-house, drug discovery platform LNAplusTM, Secarna successfully addresses the industry's technical challenges.

The company's LNAplusTM platform encompasses all aspects of drug discovery and preclinical development. The system's main components are a proprietary bioinformatics modelling system (OligofyerTM), a best-in-class high throughput screening system, and bespoke target-specific functional assays created by the firm's specialists. Latest generation technologies such as Secarna's LNAplusTM are going to lead to innovative, highly specific, safe and efficacious therapies for challenging or currently undruggable targets.

About Antisense Oligonucleotides

Antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) can control the expression of therapeutically relevant genes. ASOs modulate gene expression by the enzyme-dependent degradation of target messenger RNAs (mRNAs). To achieve this, the technology makes use of RNase H1, a cellular enzyme, to cleave the target RNA and consequently silence the expression of encoded proteins. By inhibiting the expression of disease-inducing and exacerbating proteins, ASOs have the potential to play a critical role as new therapeutics to treat diseases that have been non-treatable or have been treated ineffectively with currently available therapies.

About Secarna Pharmaceuticals GmbH & Co. KG

Secarna Pharmaceuticals is the next generation antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) company with multiple innovative antisense therapies in various stages of preclinical development in the areas of immune-oncology, ophthalmology, immunology, fibrotic diseases (airways, liver, kidney), and anti-viral applications. Secarna's mission is to maximize the performance and output of its proprietary LNAplusTM antisense oligonucleotide discovery platform, to develop highly specific, safe, and efficacious antisense therapies for challenging or currently undruggable targets.

About Oligonucleotide Therapeutic Society

The Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society (OTS) is an open, non-profit forum to foster academic and industry-based research in the development of oligonucleotide therapeutics.

OTS was founded in 2004 by an international group of renowned oligonucleotide scientists whose idea was to bring together the expertise from different angles of oligonucleotide research, to create synergies and to bring the field of oligonucleotides to its full therapeutic potential.

Contact

Jonas Renz
Managing Director and Co-Founder
[email protected]

Secarna Pharmaceuticals GmbH & Co. KG
Am Klopferspitz 19
82152 Planegg/Martinsried
Tel.: +49 (0)89 215 46 375

For media enquiries:

Anne Hennecke
MC Services AG
[email protected]
Tel.: +49 (0)211.52 92 52 22

SOURCE: Secarna Pharmaceuticals GmbH & Co. KG

Topic:
Company Update
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