Before Christmas the company announces that the transformation to focus the company’s internal resources on its clinical development projects has now been completed.

Redundancies, mainly within research and administration, are reducing the number of employees from 75 to 17. This will cut the company’s cost base by approximately two thirds, thus freeing up resources for the development projects, it states.

Bethell leaves his position as CSO

The staff reporting to Medivir’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr Uli Hacksell, now comprise Erik Björk, Chief Financial Officer, Dr Linda Basse, Chief Medical Officer, Dr Christina Herder, Executive Vice President Strategic Business Development, Åsa Holmgren, Executive Vice President Strategic Regulatory Affairs and Market Access, Karin Göhlin, Project Coordinator, Torbjörn Larsson, Director of CMC, and Dr Fredrik Öberg, Director of Biology and Pharmacology. As a result of the transformation process, Dr Richard Bethell will be leaving the position as Chief Scientific Officer.

Earlier, the CEO of the company, Christine Lind, was replaced by Uli Hacksell.

Study update

The company also reported in December that the first patient in their phase ll part of the BPT-201 study of birinapant in combination with Keytruda (pembrolizumab) has been dosed.

The BPT-201 study is a multi-center study that is conducted in two parts. In the recently completed phase I dose-escalation part patients with advanced solid tumours who have exhausted available treatment options were recruited. As has been announced previously, the combination of birinapant and Keytruda has shown a positive safety profile. The phase II part will initially recruit patients with advanced microsatellite-stable colorectal cancer without any other available therapeutic options. The primary endpoint is overall response rate (ORR). The patients will be treated with Keytruda and birinapant at the dose of 22 mg/m2until progression or unacceptable toxicity. In the colorectal cohort, up to 28 patients are planned to be recruited with a futility analysis planned after no more than 14 patients.

Photo of Uli Hacksell: Medivir