Presage Biosciences Receives Strategic Investment From Takeda

Seattle – August 20, 2015 – Presage Biosciences, an oncology company pioneering a radical new drug development approach that incorporates human efficacy data much earlier in development and clinical trials, today announced that it has secured a strategic investment from Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, through its venture capital arm, Takeda Ventures, Inc. Terms are not disclosed.

“Takeda and Presage have had an extraordinarily collaborative and productive research alliance over the past three years,” said Nathan Caffo, President of Presage. “We continue to focus together on applying Presage’s CIVO technology across the development pipeline at Takeda, from identifying novel drug combinations to translating that work to the clinic. ”

“Takeda Ventures is committed to investing in truly innovative technological approaches to make new treatments available for patients with cancer,” added Graeme Martin, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Takeda Ventures. “Presage’s CIVO technology holds promise to better translate preclinical discoveries to patients, particularly in the field of novel cancer drug combinations.”

Presage technology can be used to evaluate up to eight combinations of drugs or individual compounds, both investigational and approved, all without exposing patients to the toxicity of systemic dosing.

Presage is validating its CIVO™ platform in the veterinary oncology setting in canine patients and expects to commence its second clinical study of the platform with the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Q1 of 2016 in patients with soft tissue sarcomas. CIVO™ also is being employed in preclinical models to discover and evaluate novel combinations of cancer drugs.

About Presage Biosciences

Presage Biosciences is an oncology company pioneering the incorporation of human efficacy data much earlier in the drug development and clinical trial processes with its patented CIVO™ arrayed microinjection platform. The CIVO platform allows for simultaneous assessment of multiple drugs or drug combinations directly in a single solid tumor while still in a patient’s body to assess efficacy, resistance and drug synergies in the tumor’s native microenvironment. Presage partners with oncology-focused pharmaceutical companies through strategic alliances to provide in vivo data to validate novel targets, promote drug candidates to the right indications and discover effective drug combinations. Presage also is actively in-licensing cancer compounds and using CIVO™ to develop a portfolio of promising oncology therapies to advance to the clinic. Presage is privately held and based in Seattle. For more information, visit www.presagebio.com.

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