Bonus Biogroup Recognized as a Global Leader in Biotechnology and Cell Therapy at Advanced Therapies Week 2024 in Miami, USA
Bonus Biogroup is proud to announce its remarkable achievement on January 18, 2024, having been awarded the prestigious Advanced Therapies Award in the foremost category: Cell Therapy Biotech Innovation [1]. This honor acknowledges Bonus Biogroup's exceptional role in driving therapeutic innovation in cell therapy, positively impacting patient care.
At the pinnacle event of Advanced Therapies Week, held from January 16-19, 2024, in Miami, Florida [2], Bonus Biogroup was declared the exclusive winner of the Cell Therapy Biotech Innovation Award. This flagship international event of the cell and gene therapy industry is a key platform for global companies to showcase their innovative treatments and products in advanced development stages and explore commercialization partnerships [3].
Marking a historic moment, Bonus Biogroup is the first Israeli company to receive this esteemed award, chosen by a panel of distinguished judges representing the elite of the cell and gene therapy industry.
The event also celebrated major players and influential figures in biotechnology. Among the awardees was Rocket Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: RCKT, market capitalization of $2.395 billion [4]), winning the Gene Therapy Biotech Innovation Award. The Patient Advocacy Award (Corporate) was secured by Novartis Gene Therapies, formerly AveXis, following its acquisition by Novartis in 2018 for $8.7 billion [5]. Prof. Luigi Naldini, a gene therapy pioneer [6], was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Bonus Biogroup's accolade stems from its significant strides in developing two groundbreaking products undergoing advanced clinical trials: MesenCure, a cell therapy for treating inflammation and tissue damage, including pneumonia and respiratory distress, and BonoFill, a living human bone graft designed for bone tissue regeneration and rehabilitation.
Dr. Shai Meretzky, CEO of Bonus Biogroup, expressed gratitude: "We are immensely thankful to the esteemed jury for recognizing Bonus Biogroup as a global leader in biotechnology and cell therapy innovation. This award is a testament to the international professional acclaim for our extensive journey in cell therapy and tissue engineering, from conception to clinical application, towards harnessing their commercial potential. This recognition belongs to our dedicated team, medical partners, and investors, who have unwaveringly supported our vision of providing advanced, safe, and effective treatments for challenging and prevalent medical conditions. This achievement is a step towards making advanced therapies widely available worldwide. We remain committed to leading in biotechnology sciences and developing solutions to improve human health.
About Bonus Biogroup
Bonus Biogroup Ltd. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company dedicated to developing advanced therapies in tissue regeneration and biotech products using tissue engineering and cell therapy. The Company currently has two products in clinical development: BonoFill™, a live tissue-engineered human bone graft intended for bone tissue regeneration and rehabilitation, and MesenCure, a cell therapy designed to treat inflammation and tissue damage, including pneumonia and respiratory distress. Bonus Biogroup also maintains a variety of technologies and products in the preclinical development phase.
The development of these products involves the application of unique technologies and knowledge proprietary to Bonus Biogroup. The Company's robust intellectual property portfolio includes six families of patents and patent applications, comprised of thirty-one approved patents and ten patent applications, spanning numerous countries worldwide.
About BonoFill™ – Living Human Bone Graft
Bonus Biogroup has announced results from twenty out of thirty bone grafts in Phase II clinical trial for treating facial bone deficiencies, following a six-month observation period after each transplantation. The Company has completed the recruitment of all participants and is conducting a multicenter Phase II clinical trial to treat critical-sized bone defects in limb, hand, or foot bones at five medical centers in Israel using BonoFill™.
Bone deficiencies can arise due to aging, infections, osteoarthritis, traumas, and tumors. To mitigate the risk of rejection, Bonus Biogroup developed a living human bone graft using cells sampled from the patient. This lab-grown bone ensures effective bone grafts are readily available for various medical needs, including oral and maxillofacial surgery, skull surgery, orthopedic surgery, and plastic surgery, where bone tissue is lacking.
About the drug MesenCure
Bonus Biogroup has completed a Phase II clinical trial for treating pneumonia and life-teetering respiratory distress in severe COVID-19 patients using the cell therapy drug MesenCure. Clinical trial results indicate that MesenCure reduced the mortality rate of severe COVID-19 patients by 68% compared to the control group, with the survival rate standing at 94% for the 50 severe patients treated with the drug.
MesenCure, comprised of professionalized mesenchymal cells, aims to treat inflammation and tissue damage, including pneumonia and respiratory distress caused by the coronavirus or other viruses, bacterial infections, or other sources of immune overactivity, inflammation, or tissue damage.
The drug's effectiveness is attributed to the professionalization of the comprising cells, which enhances their natural ability to heal inflammation and tissue damage. The cells constituting MesenCure also affect inflammation and promote tissue regeneration through various mechanisms, potentially offering a broader and superior effect on diverse populations suffering from inflammation and tissue damage from multiple causes compared to drugs with a single mechanism of action.
Given the successful demonstration of MesenCure's effectiveness in treating acute respiratory distress in severe COVID-19 patients, the Company has broadened its efforts to investigate the potential efficacy of the drug and its derivatives in treating other indications such as cytokine release syndrome resulting from immunotherapy treatments to activate the immune system against cancer or from hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, as well as in tissue rehabilitation and healing.
Company Estimations Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
Bonus BioGroup's assessments regarding the medical effect and/or commercial potential of its products and/or the resulting economic opportunities, and the Company's ability to continue the process of their development, including conducting studies, and arriving at a product that can be medically applied in humans, for the duration and expected dates to perform any stage in any experiment and publish its results and obtain regulatory approvals for marketing the product, are forward-looking statements, as defined by the Securities Law of 1968, which are based on the Company's estimates and on the information in its possession at the time of reporting.
There is no certainty that these estimates will materialize, in whole or in part, among others, due to dependence on the actions of third parties, which are not under the Company's control, on the development of future cancer therapies, on future studies results, if any, due to the possibility of delay in obtaining approval from relevant authorities and/or change in the relevant conditions and/or feasibility tests that the Company may conduct and/or delay in performing studies and/or need to perform further experiments and/or failure of experiments and/or technological changes and/or the development and/or marketing of similar and/or more efficient competing products and/or the lack of resources and/or the realization of any of the risk factors associated with the research and/or studies and/or its results.
Sincerely,
Bonus BioGroup Ltd.
By: Yossi Rauch (Chairman of the Board) and Dr. Shai Meretzki (CEO and Director)
References
- https://advancedtherapiesawards.phacilitate.com/winners/
- https://advancedtherapiesweek.phacilitate.com/
- https://advancedtherapiesweek.phacilitate.com/why-advanced-therapies-week/
- https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/rckt
- https://www.novartis.com/news/media-releases/novartis-enters-agreement-acquire-avexis-inc-usd-87-bn-transform-care-sma-and-expand-position-gene-therapy-and-neuroscience-leader
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Naldini