Global CRO Pi Health has pulled a new partnership out of the oven. Building on a growing presence Down Under, Pi Health will provide CRO services and a clinical trial software platform to Australian biotech Filamon as the oncology company launches a phase 1/2 study in advanced solid cancers.
The Advice trial of kesonotide, an anti-inflammatory vimentin inhibitor, is intended to be the first of many collaborations between Pi Health and Filamon, the companies said in a Sept. 4 release.
Pi Health will tap its five sites in Australia for the trial, according to the release. The company’s approach is to use AI-powered software to support documentation and data collection that meets regulatory requirements.
"We’re developing a highly differentiated, growing pipeline of drug candidates that hold potential for breakthroughs in major medical needs and we see this partnership with Pi Health as a logical step," Graham Kelly, Filamon’s CEO and managing director, said in the release. "It gives us access to the sort of world-class services a much larger drug development company would have, allowing us to focus our time and resources on drug discovery and development.”
Pi Health, a spinout from BeOne Medicines (formerly BeiGene), raised a more than $30 million series A in March 2024, just six months after opening a cancer hospital in Hyderabad, India—an unusual move for a software-focused CRO. The Pi Health Cancer Hospital is now running seven industry-sponsored clinical trials, a company spokesperson told Fierce Biotech, with enrollment rates of three to five patients per month, “which is above industry benchmarks for India.”