On March 14, 2022 Lantern Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ: LTRN), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company using its proprietary RADR artificial intelligence ("A.I.") and machine learning (ML) platform to transform the cost, pace, and timeline of oncology drug discovery and development, reported that it will present positive preclinical data on the in vitro efficacy of its drug candidate LP-184 in brain metastases (mets) at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) annual meeting, April 8-13th, 2022, held in New Orleans, Louisiana (Press release, Lantern Pharma, MAR 14, 2022, View Source [SID1234610021]).

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LP-184 is a small molecule drug candidate and next generation acylfulvene that preferentially damages DNA in cancer cells that overexpress certain biomarkers and is therefore lethal in tumors that harbor mutations or deficiencies in DNA repair pathways. LP-184 has already been demonstrated preclinically to have potent efficacy in several targeted central nervous system (CNS) cancer indications, including glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) and atypical teratoid rhomboid tumors (ATRT). The development promise for LP-184 in these indications is strengthened by LP-184’s favorable blood brain barrier (BBB) permeability. LP-184 has also demonstrated potent tumor cell killing capabilities in vitro and in animal xenografts of tumors such as lung, breast, melanoma and colon, many of which frequently metastasize to the brain. The tumor specificity of LP-184 is driven by expression levels of PTGR1, and Lantern’s RADR analysis indicates that such expression levels are retained in brain mets of these primary tumors.

The virtual poster will be presented by Lantern Pharma in collaboration with Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Kennedy Krieger Institute and will describe positive preclinical data demonstrating the effectiveness of LP-184 treatment in brain mets cell models derived from patient lung, skin, and breast cancers. The poster will also show that in an in vitro model of brain mets from lung cancer, LP-184 treatment was found to be 6 times more potent than EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (a widely used type of therapy).

Brain mets are more common than primary brain tumors (cancer that starts in the brain), and studies suggest that brain mets occur in about 10%-30% of patients with cancer. In the U.S., brain mets (from all cancers combined) are estimated to account for over 100,000 diagnoses annually and generally have a very poor prognosis even after radiation therapy. There is an urgent and unmet clinical need for novel therapies for brain mets due to a current lack of novel agents that can cross the blood brain barrier. LP-184’s favorable BBB permeability paired with its observed preclinical efficacy in certain CNS cancers, underscore its potential to become a vital treatment option for patients relapsed from current standard of care treatment or for use in combination with other agents.

LP-184 was recently granted Orphan Drug Designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of malignant gliomas, pancreatic cancer, and ATRT, and was also granted a Rare Pediatric Disease Designation for ATRT. These designations and continued positive preclinical data will help to accelerate LP-184 towards IND submission and multiple Phase 1 clinical trials in 2022.

Details of the virtual poster presentation are listed below or can be found on the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) website:

Title: LP-184, a tumor site activated small molecule synthetic lethal therapeutic, is effective in central nervous system cancers
Permanent Abstract number: 5442
Date and Time: April 8, 2022, 12:00pm-1:00pm CST
Session Category: Experimental and Molecular Therapeutics
Session Title: Small Molecule Therapeutic Agents
Presenter: Aditya Kulkarni, Ph.D., Lantern Pharma