Levrett Plc (LON:LVRT) CEO Pascal Hughes, said: “Sean Parker of Napster and Facebook fame joins a list of tech based philanthropists starting initiatives in the Biotech and Lifescience sector with this collaborative initiative in immuno-oncology which is also one of the four principal areas of focus for us at Levrett due to the exciting and potentially far reaching developments in this area of medicine in the fight against cancer.”
Sean Parker best known as a billionaire tech entrepreneur, Co founder of Napster and first president of Facebook is giving $250 million through his foundation to launch the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. It will be a collaboration between some of the nation’s top cancer research institutes that aims to accelerate the development of breakthrough immune therapies. Immunotherapy is one of the major advances in cancer treatments in recent decades. It harnesses the body’s own immune system and mobilizes its disease-fighting abilities to attack cancer cells. Cancer cells are adept at “hiding” from the body’s disease-fighting immune system, allowing it to elude detection. Immunotherapies are able to overcome those evasive strategies by either turning off the immune system’s brakes—through so-called “checkpoint inhibitor” drugs—so it can work in overdrive to attack the cancer cells or by rejiggering the body’s T-cells to specifically recognize cancer cells, a strategy that includes what are known as CAR-T therapies.
Levrett Plc, which was formed to acquire a target company with realisable or developed commercial technologies in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector has made considerable progress towards identifying such targets focused on four specific strategic sectors, being; Oncology, Diabetes, Obesity and Mental Health. The Board has reviewed a number of specific targets to date, within the UK, Europe and the United States. Whilst some of these have not met the investment criteria for the Company, the Board continues to review the other opportunities with a view to completing a suitable acquisition.
