HOUSTON, June 03, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 7 Hills Pharma Inc. ("7 Hills" or "7HP"), a clinical-stage pharma company leveraging a novel mechanism of action to safely enhance the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapies, was awarded $4.7 million from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) to support its cell/gene therapy (CGT) development program. This grant will allow 7 Hills to advance 7HP935, the Company's lead first-in-class small molecule to augment CGT, through a Phase I clinical trial. 7HP's CGT program has previously been awarded over $3.2 million via multiple awards from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, including STTR grants R41HL129612 and R42HL129612, and Catalyze grant R33HL161778. CCBC laboratory staff members prepare the Center's 800th umbilical cord blood unit for shipment. 7 Hills Pharma aims to increase clinical utilization of cord blood resources and improve patient access to life-saving HSCT. Many CGT approaches, including CRISPR-based therapies and treatments for blood cancers, include integration of CGT within hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), popularly known as a "bone marrow transplant". Bone marrow is the tissue that generates red blood cells, platelets, and the white blood cells that comprise the immune system. During HSCT, a patient's bone marrow is first treated with chemotherapy or radiation to ‘make space' for engraftment of healthy CD34+ stem cells infused intravenously. These healthy stem cells traffic or ‘home' to the bone marrow niche, engraft, and begin to repopulate the patient's entire blood and immune system. During the period after a patient's bone marrow has been treated but before the new stem cells have engrafted, the patient is at risk for serious infection and its management often requires prolonged hospitalization. Importantly, up to 10% of HSCT patients experience a complication where the healthy ...