Boehringer Ingelheim and Philogen Collaborate to Investigate Novel Treatment Approaches for Acute Myeloid Leukemia

PRESS RELEASE

Ingelheim, Germany and Siena, Italy, 12 October, 2015 — Boehringer Ingelheim and Philogen announced today, that they will collaborate on investigating novel treatment approaches for Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). As part of the collaborative effort, the partners have agreed on an exploratory trial investigating novel immunotherapy concepts for relapsed AML patients.

Despite being a rare disease, AML is one of the most common types of leukemia in adults, accounting for approximately one third of all adult leukemias in the Western world. There is a particularly high medical need in AML, as it has one of the lowest survival rates of all leukemias. It predominantly occurs in older adults; the average age of newly diagnosed patients is 65 years and the prognosis worsens with increasing age, with a median survival of six months or less following diagnosis in older patients.

“We look forward to working with Philogen — a highly innovative biotechnology company -, and to progressing our clinical understanding of treatment strategies for AML” said Martin Stefanic, Head Clinical Development Hemato-Oncology, at Boehringer Ingelheim. “This new collaboration adds a highly innovative new approach to our existing broad hematological cancer pipeline.”

Dr. Duccio Neri, CEO of Philogen commented “With its impressive success in bringing innovative new therapies to market and its broad experience in oncology research and development Boehringer Ingelheim is the right partner, to accelerate the transition of our novel targeted therapies into clinical development.”.

Further details about the planned clinical trial will be communicated at a forthcoming scientific meeting. Financial details will not be communicated.