PASCAL BIOSCIENCES AND SORSE TECHNOLOGY ANNOUNCE PARTNERSHIP FOR CANNABINOID DRUG DEVELOPMENT AND CANCER CLINICAL TRIALS
Pascal Biosciences Inc. and SoRSE Technology Corp. have entered into a collaborative research agreement to advance Pascal's PAS-393 into clinical testing. Pascal and SoRSE will share their respective technologies to test the cannabinoid PAS-393 in human volunteers, enabling testing of cancer patients treated with checkpoint inhibitors.
As initially announced last March, this partnership leverages SoRSE's industry-leading formulation technology with Pascal's proprietary cannabinoid programs for clinical trials. This will be the first pharmaceutical use of the novel formulation technology developed by SoRSE. The agreement will include Pascal's intellectual property, which covers the use of cannabinoids in cancer patients treated with checkpoint inhibitors.
SoRSE currently sells and licenses a proprietary water-soluble cannabinoid emulsion technology (patent pending) that enables increased bioavailability, accurate dosing and a more-than-12-month shelf stability. Pascal and SoRSE scientists will optimize a cannabinoid formulation for human subjects and will then test the formulated PAS-393 in volunteers. SoRSE will provide $750,000 (U.S.) in research financing to Pascal throughout the 15-month collaboration and will pay for related research expenditures.
Following characterization of safety and pharmacology in a phase 1a clinical trial, Pascal and SoRSE may elect to continue clinical development as equal partners in a phase 1b cancer trial in combination with a checkpoint inhibitor. Dr. Patrick Gray, chief executive officer of Pascal, will present scientific data this Sept. 16 at the third annual international cannabinoid-derived pharmaceutical conference occurring in Boston, Mass.; the topic of his presentation is "Identifying and validating mechanism of action in vivo/vitro."
"This is an impressive step forward for both Pascal and SoRSE, and hopefully our product will be a significant help to patients," commented Dr. Gray. "This will be the first clinical trial for each company, and we look forward to a long, fruitful relationship."
"At SoRSE, we're driven by our mission to help people better their lives through superior cannabinoid ingredients and delivery methods," said SoRSE chief executive officer Howard Lee. "We were thrilled when Pascal reached out to us in the summer of 2019 asking to use our emulsion in their research study on immune recognition markers on cancer cells. Today, we are excited to continue to support pharmaceutical studies of cannabinoids with Pascal and other world-class researchers."
SoRSE intends to collaborate with other researchers and product developers to study cannabinoids in other medical applications. Pascal will continue to pursue other non-cancer indications for PAS-393.
About Pascal Biosciences Inc.
Pascal is a biotechnology company targeting innovative therapies for serious diseases, including COVID-19. Pascal is also developing treatments for cancer with targeted therapies for acute lymphoblastic leukemia and cannabinoid-based therapeutics. Pascal's leading portfolio also comprises a small molecule therapeutic, PAS-403, that is advancing into clinical trials for the treatment of glioblastoma, and PAS-393, an immuno-stimulatory cannabinoid, to be used in combination with checkpoint inhibitor therapy.
About PAS-393
Pascal recently discovered the unique capacity of its cannabinoid drug, PAS-393, to reverse a common immune-evading strategy adopted by many metastatic cancers. Thus, treatment with PAS-393 may restore the ability of the immune system to recognize and eliminate cancer cells. This activity is especially important for immune checkpoint inhibitors, which depend upon immune recognition of cancer for their efficacy. Pascal is advancing PAS-393 as a combination therapy with checkpoint inhibitors for the 50 per cent or more of cancer patients not currently helped by the checkpoint inhibitors.