REDWOOD CITY, Calif., April 23, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OncoMed Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq:OMED), a clinical-stage company developing novel therapeutics that target cancer stem cells (CSCs), or tumor-initiating cells, today announced that several abstracts have been accepted for presentation at the upcoming American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting being held May 30 - June 3, 2014 in Chicago, IL.

OncoMed will present new clinical data from its ongoing studies, including the Phase 1b study of demcizumab (OMP-21M18, anti-DLL4) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the Phase 1/2 PINNACLE trial of OMP-59R5 (anti-Notch 2/3) in small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) and the Phase 1 trial of OMP-54F28 (FZD8-Fc) in patients with advanced solid tumors. The list of abstracts and timing of the presentations is provided below.

Read more: http://investor.shareholder.com/oncomed/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=841935

This guest article is by Sean Duffy, CEO and Co-Founder, Omada Health

Three out of four Americans will die of a disease that could be avoided—if only they could re-route their unhealthy habits. A new category of medicine, digital therapeutics, wants to change the course of these conditions — and of history.

Doctors have known for decades that, in order to prevent disease or its complications, they were going to have to get into people’s living rooms and convince them to change everyday behaviors that would very likely kill them. To that end, back in the early ’90s, health institutions started trying to intervene largely via the cutting-edge technology that existed at the time: phone calls. At-risk populations were dialed up and encouraged to take steps that could ward off heart disease, diabetes complications, lung cancer and other avoidable conditions that cause 75% of Americans to die prematurely.

As you can imagine, these calls largely flopped. A phone interaction led by a stranger who interrupts your dinner hour, no matter how well-intentioned, felt like more like an intrusion than meaningful support.

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/sciencebiz/2014/04/17/what-if-doctors-could-finally-prescribe-behavior-change/#what-if-doctors-could-finally-prescribe-behavior-change

When Erica Rogers left the vascular business in 1999, carotid artery stenting was The Next Big Thing for interventional cardiologists. It only made sense, since as many as half of all strokes are caused by a narrowing of the primary arteries that run through the neck to the head, and cardiologists had experience with a somewhat similar procedure in narrowed heart vessels.

The big question was whether carotid stenting ever would be as good as carotid endarterectomy, a surgical repair of the artery performed for much of the past 50 years.

Fast forward to 2012. Rogers had held top positions at a couple of companies, including the nonprofit drug-device company Medicines360 and Visogen, which Abbott Laboratories bought in 2009 for $400 million, when private equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC talked to Rogers about Silk Road Medical.

Read more: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/biotech/2014/04/silk-road-medical-carotid-artery-stent-stroke.html?page=all

Health-tech startup Omada Health promises to help people with health issues change their behavior. And it’s starting out with a program to help diabetes sufferers.

“It is a digital therapeutic, and they deliver weight loss over an Internet connection,” Balaji S. Srinivasan, a partner at investor Andreesen Horowitz, told VentureBeat in an interview.

The company, which is announcing a hefty $23 million in new funding today, takes landmark behavioral science research and turns it into programs that use various digital technologies to help people who are at risk for or suffering from a particular health issue.

Read more: http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/09/omada-health-grabs-a-new-23m-to-deliver-weight-loss-over-an-internet-connection/#omada-health-grabs-a-new-23m-to-deliver-weight-loss-over-an-internet-connection

Balaji Srinivasan, who was hired as a general partner by Andreessen Horowitz to help the firm move into new areas, has spearheaded the firm’s first major foray into health-care investing with a $23 million Series B round for digital therapy companyOmada Health, Tim Hay reports for VentureWire. Though Andreessen has backed several consumer-facing health technology companies, the funding for Omada was the first double-digit venture capital round for a company with clinically proven, prescription-based products,  and it’s Andreessen’s first board seat at such a company.

Read more: 
http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/04/09/the-daily-startup-andreessen-horowitz-makes-major-foray-into-health-care//#the-daily-startup-andreessen-horowitz-makes-major-foray-into-health-care

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. April 7, 2014 - OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: OMED), a clinical- stage company developing novel therapeutics that target cancer stem cells (CSCs), or tumor-initiating cells, today announced data from an oral presentation and eight poster presentations at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA April 5-9, 2014. The research presented at AACR highlighted OncoMed’s drug discovery platforms along with preclinical and biomarker discoveries on its clinical-stage product candidates and several emerging product candidates. A brief summary of each presentation is provided below.

“The nine presentations at this year’s AACR Annual Meeting demonstrate the breadth and depth of OncoMed’s preclinical research and discovery work. Encompassing many of our clinical and preclinical stage candidates, data being presented this week highlight the potent anti-cancer stem cell activity seen across our portfolio, the opportunities to combine our compounds with standard-of-care, and our ongoing biomarker identification efforts being applied to programs in clinical development,” said John Lewicki, PhD, Executive Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer. 

Read More: http://www.vertical-group.com/uploads/1/3/9/6/13963771/omed_aacr_press_release_2014_v5.pdf

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