On March 5, 2026 Starton Therapeutics Inc. ("Starton"), a clinical-stage biotechnology company employing standard-of-care therapies with proprietary continuous delivery technologies, reported that it has filed patent applications covering the delivery of Starton’s proprietary continuous low-dose immunomodulatory imides (IMiDs) in combination with CAR-T cell therapies, which has the potential to enhance CAR-T activity and durability.
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"We are delighted to announce the filing of these provisional patent applications that incorporate both in vivo and ex vivo CAR-T cell therapies in combination with our proprietary subcutaneous formulation," said Pedro Lichtinger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Starton. "We believe this combination has the potential to improve CAR-T cell expansion and persistence while minimizing the concomitant toxicity of the IMiD."
About STAR-LLD
STAR-LLD is a continuous delivery lenalidomide (LLD) in development seeking to expand and replace the standard-of-care for the most common blood cancers, multiple myeloma (MM), and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). A preclinical proof-of-concept study for subcutaneous STAR-LLD demonstrated that MM tumors caused by human myeloma cells grew 25-fold if untreated, five-fold when treated with daily lenalidomide, and shrank by 80% with STAR-LLD over a single 28-day cycle. The study also showed a 100% overall response rate (ORR) using continuous delivery LLD with 20% of animals in this cohort tumor-free after 100 days; by contrast, there was a 0% ORR in animals treated with a 70% higher dose of lenalidomide given in single daily doses. In addition, a Phase 1b clinical study of six relapsed/refractory MM patients resulted in all patients that received STAR-LLD achieving an objective response (1 CR and 5 PRs); no patients experienced drug-related anemia, neutropenia, leukopenia, or thrombocytopenia greater than grade 2 in up to 12 cycles of therapy. The Phase 1b clinical study concluded that continuous delivery of low dose lenalidomide (STAR-LLD) provides meaningful efficacy and improved tolerability with no grade > 2 drug-related hematologic toxicity.
(Press release, Starton Therapeutics, MAR 5, 2026, View Source [SID1234663324])