Lou A. Bianco

DiaKine Therapeutics, Inc. is a start-up biopharmaceutical company developing new, proprietary drugs for unmet medical needs in diabetes and complications related to diabetes. These drugs have the potential to restate the diabetes market by stopping the progression of diabetes and reversing damage already caused by the disease. Because of their unique immune modulating and anti-inflammatory properties, these therapies may potentially benefit people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes and represent a total available market opportunity of approximately $13 billion. The Company's lead compound, Lisofylline (LSF), has had an excellent safety profile in clinical trials to date. LSF works at the cellular level by improving the function of insulin producing islet cells and protecting them from damage and premature death caused when the body's immune system turns on itself. This autoimmune action is the cause of type 1 diabetes and Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults (LADA), which combined affect approximately three million people in the U.S. About three million people with type 2 diabetes use insulin due to diminished insulin production and an increasing resistance to insulin. A primary focus of DiaKine's research and development is on its next generation of orally bioavailable immune modulators which have an improved spectrum of action to LSF. Two such compounds, DT22669 and DT23552, have been identified for further development and are examples of the extensive library of analogs and new structures in its patent portfolio that await discovery for future indications.

CTI BioPharma Corp. is a biopharmaceutical company, which engages in the development, acquisition, and commercialization of novel targeted therapies for blood-related cancers. It focuses on evaluating pacritinib, its sole product candidate currently in active development, for the treatment of adult patients with myelofibrosis. The company was founded by James A. Bianco, Jack W. Singer, and Louis A. Bianco in September 1991 and is headquartered in Seattle, WA.