NEW YORK -- Hørsholm, Denmark-based Oncology Venture on Monday announced that it will change its name to Allarity Therapeutics, hire a new executive, and expand its board of directors as part of a long-term strategy to market the precision oncology drugs it is developing to patients in the US.
Allarity said in a statement that it plans to grow the number of board members from three to five, subject to shareholder approval in early October. The new board members are Søren Gade, a current member of European Parliament and former minister of defense in Denmark, and Gail Maderis, CEO of California-based Antiva Biosciences.
The restructuring will also involve hiring a new CFO to replace Henrik Moltke, who will be leaving the company. James Cullem, current senior VP of corporate development, will serve in this role in the interim as the company searches for a US-based CFO with Nasdaq expertise.
Allarity's shift toward the US oncology and financial markets comes as its pipeline of products is steadily growing. In recent years, Allarity has acquired a number of cancer agents, including investigational PARP inhibitors and tyrosine kinase inhibitors, and has publicly discussed six agents in various stages of development, from Phase I/II clinical trials to the pre-NDA stage.
In March, the company met with the US Food and Drug Administration to discuss regulatory plans for its pan-TKI dovitinib — a product that previously failed in the hands of Novartis — as a third-line treatment option for patients with renal cell carcinoma who are predicted to benefit based on Allarity's drug response predictor (DRP) platform. The DRP platform relies on an AI-driven algorithm to identify which patients have a high likelihood of responding to a given drug.
The company has assessed the DRP's ability to predict clinical outcomes through multiple retrospective studies and is validating it prospectively in a Phase II trial. Even as the company shifts to a US-facing commercialization approach, its Denmark headquarters will continue to serve as the R&D base for the DRP program.
"Our new company name, Allarity Therapeutics, better reflects our focus on developing promising new cancer therapeutics, together with DRP companion diagnostics, to match cancer patients with the best therapeutic options for their particular cancers, thereby realizing the promise of personalized medicine," Allarity's CEO Steve Carchedi said in a statement about these strategic changes.