Flow Pharma, Inc. Announces U.S. Breast Cancer Clinical Study

Flow Pharma will use its gene sequencing, neoantigen prediction and validation systems in this milestone study to be followed by Phase I/II planned for 2020

PLEASANT HILL, CA / ACCESSWIRE / October 1, 2019 / Flow Pharma, Inc., a San Francisco Bay Area biotechnology company developing its FlowVax(TM) peptide vaccine platform technology, today announced that it has received IRB approval to begin enrolling patients for Flow Pharma protocol FP-BRST-2019 entitled “Gene sequencing of breast cancer tissue samples being collected during the normal course of diagnosis and treatment.”

“Our goal is to be able to make patient-specific cancer therapeutic peptide vaccines to treat patients with breast cancer” said CV Herst, Ph.D., Flow Pharma Chief Science Officer. “In order to do this, we need to be able to identify small proteins called neoantigen peptides on breast cancer cells that the patient’s immune system can identify. Once we know what those targets for immune system attack are, we can quickly load them into our FlowVax(TM) peptide vaccine platform to treat the patient which we plan to start doing next year.”

“We have a assembled a unique set of tools to predict neoantigen peptide targets on breast cancer cells, and to validate that these peptides will be recognizable by the patient’s immune system” said Reid Rubsamen, M.D., Flow Pharma CEO and Principal Investigator for the study. “We believe that this study will put us in a position to quickly transition to our Phase I/II studies planned for next year which will employ the same technology and techniques we are using here coupled with patient-specific FlowVax(TM) cancer therapeutic peptide vaccines.”

“As a busy breast surgeon, I am very interested in new approaches to breast cancer treatment” said Sharon Wright, M.D., Chief of Surgery at Saint Mary’s Regional Medical center in Reno, Nevada and Co-Principal Investigator for the study. “We are entering a new era of using the patient’s immune system to help fight their cancer. This study uses new approaches for cancer therapeutic vaccine design which I find very promising and I look forward to participating as Co-Principal Investigator.”

“As a pathologist who sees lots of breast cancer cases, I am interested to see what we can do to treat patients who fail conventional treatments” said Tikoes Blankenberg, M.D., Senior Partner at Shasta Pathology Associates and director of Flow Pharma. “This is especially true of so called Triple Negative Breast Cancer, representing about 20% of all breast cancer, for which there is currently no tumor-specific therapy.”

“In the United States currently, Triple-Negative Breast Cancer, present in women who lack markers for the three most effective currently available forms of treatment, is highest among African American and Hispanic women” said Pamela Steele, M.D., M.P.H., director of Flow Pharma. “By using gene sequencing and AI to customize therapy for each patient, we believe that we can move drug development away from “one size fits all” and into patient-specific therapy to treat patient populations that may have been under-represented in clinical trials conducted for traditional breast cancer treatments.”

About Flow Pharma

Flow Pharma, Inc. is a San Francisco Bay Area based, pre-clinical stage biotechnology company using artificial intelligence to guide selection of neoantigen peptide targets on cancer cells or virus-infected cells for attack by the patient’s own, native immune system. These peptides can then be loaded into the FlowVax platform for administration by injection.

Flow Pharma, Inc. is preparing to test therapeutic cancer vaccines targeting neoantigens found in various cancers. Neoantigens are small peptide markers expressed on cancer cells as a result of a cancer-causing viral infection or mutation of the DNA in normal cells, agents that cause transformation into cancer cells.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements, including information about management’s view of Flow Pharma, Inc. (“the Company”), future expectations, plans and prospects. In particular, when used in the preceding discussion, the words “believes,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “anticipates,” or “may,” and similar conditional expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Any statements made in this presentation other than those of historical fact, about an action, event or development, are forward-looking statements. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the results of the Company, its subsidiaries and concepts to be materially different than those expressed or implied in such statements. Unknown or unpredictable factors also could have material adverse effects on the Company’s future results. The forward-looking statements included in this presentation are made only as of the date hereof. The Company cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Finally, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these statements after the date of this release, except as required by law, and also takes no obligation to update or correct information prepared by third parties that are not paid for by Flow Pharma, Inc.

Media Contact

Investor Relations
Flow Pharma, Inc.
3451 Vincent Road
Pleasant Hill, California 94523
925-708-8000
www.flowpharma.com
ir@flowpharma.com

SOURCE: Flow Pharma, Inc.

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