FivepHusion Announces Strategic Collaboration with Treehill Partners and Syneos Health

Supporting FivepHusion's Global Development and Commercialization Strategy

SYDNEY, May 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- FivepHusion, an advanced clinical-stage biotechnology company, today announced its collaboration with Treehill Partners, a New York-based strategic and financial advisory firm specializing in healthcare industry transactions, and Syneos Health^® (Nasdaq: SYNH), a leading fully integrated biopharmaceutical solutions organization, to develop and bring a novel, enhanced chemotherapeutic product to market.

Treehill Partners will support FivepHusion with integrated business development, operational, strategic and transactional expertise. Syneos Health will support FivepHusion's integrated clinical development and commercialization capabilities. This collaboration is designed to strategically and optimally progress development and commercialization of FivepHusion's enhanced chemotherapeutic formulation Deflexifol™ in global markets.

"This is a very exciting time for FivepHusion. We are at a crucial stage in our growth strategy. By collaborating with Treehill Partners and Syneos Health, we believe we are positioned to successfully bring our development work on Deflexifol™ to global markets, including in the US, Europe and Asia," said Dr. Christian Toouli, CEO & Managing Director, FivepHusion. "This collaboration represents a unique working model to the industry. Through the combined strength and competency of three industry leaders, we intend to maximize our progress on the development of Deflexifol™ and quickly bring innovative oncology medicines to patients in need."

"We're excited to collaborate with FivepHusion and Treehill Partners to help bring Deflexifol™ to patients," said Christian Tucat, Chief Business Officer, Syneos Health. "Leveraging our deep therapeutic and global expertise, Syneos Health is pleased to contribute to accelerating the clinical development and commercialization of this important new therapy."

"This collaboration represents a new model of integrated services across disciplines, designed to allow US and non-US emerging players to play a key role on the global stage, and we're proud to work alongside FivepHusion and Syneos Health," said Ali Pashazadeh, Partner & Co-founder, Treehill Partners. "By merging the scientific prowess of our clients with the clinical and commercial expertise of Syneos Health and Treehill's healthcare advisory and execution capabilities, we are providing a unique ecosystem designed to help companies to flourish despite the current challenging market environment."

About FivepHusion

FivepHusion (www.fivephusion.com) is an advanced clinical-stage, globally focused biotechnology company whose purpose is to optimize chemotherapy to improve patient treatment outcomes and quality of life.

FivepHusion is developing Deflexifol™, a proprietary, novel, and optimized physiological pH formulation to co-administer the chemotherapeutic agent 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and its biomodulator leucovorin (LV), a drug that enhances 5-FU anti-cancer activity. These drugs are commonly used globally to treat various solid tumors including colorectal, pancreatic, gastric and breast cancers. However, due to their chemical incompatibility, current formulations of 5-FU and LV suffer from limitations in their safety, tolerability, effectiveness and pharmacological compatibility. These disadvantages contribute to limited treatment response rates, unpleasant side effects and toxicities, and a reduced quality of life experienced by cancer patients. Deflexifol™ has been designed to address these limitations through co-administration of the two agents with clinically demonstrated improvements in safety and tolerability and the potential to offer superior anti-tumor efficacy, better quality of life, and overall enhanced clinical benefit for cancer patients.

FivepHusion is developing Deflexifol™ via the FDA 505(b)(2) and EMA Article 10b regulatory pathways as a bioequivalent, chemotherapy replacement of sub-optimal standard of care formulations of 5-FU and LV for the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer, and other tumors with a projected global incidence of greater than 6 million patients. Deflexifol™ is also being developed as a new therapy for cancers with high unmet medical need, including pediatric ependymoma; a rare and deadly brain cancer which afflicts very young children.

Deflexifol™ is a trademark of FivepHusion.

About Syneos Health

Syneos Health^® (Nasdaq: SYNH) is a leading fully integrated biopharmaceutical solutions organization built to accelerate customer success.  Syneos translates unique clinical, medical affairs and commercial insights into outcomes to address modern market realities. 

Syneos brings together a talented team of professionals, who work across more than 110 countries, with a deep understanding of patient and physician behaviors and market dynamics. Together Syneos shares insights, uses the latest technologies and applies advanced business practices to speed customers' delivery of important therapies to patients. 

Syneos Health supports a diverse, equitable and inclusive culture that cares for colleagues, customers, patients, communities and the environment. 

To learn more about how Syneos are Shortening the distance from lab to life^®, visit syneoshealth.com or subscribe to our podcast. 

About Treehill Partners

Treehill was founded in 2014 and is led by partner and co-founder Ali Pashazadeh, who previously headed Blackstone's healthcare advisory team and UBS' European biotech coverage.

Treehill supports clients in the healthcare industry throughout the asset lifecycle, from buy-side acquisition and investment over value build and growth to sell-side disposal and divestment. Key areas of focus are the identifying and executing of value creative transactions and their knitting into successful corporate evolution strategies.

In delivering its advice, the firm employs a multidisciplinary senior team with impeccable pedigree that comprises medical doctors/ MDs, scientists/ PhDs, CEOs of biotechs, senior executives from large pharma, and experienced strategy consultants and investment bankers. Services provided are centered around the "principal mentality" of the team, delivering actionable strategic and transaction advice that matters to CEOs, senior leadership, their stakeholders and investors.