DALLAS, Feb. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Lantern Pharma
(NASDAQ: LTRN), a Dallas-based
clinical stage biopharmaceutical company using its proprietary
artificial intelligence ("A.I.") platform to transform the cost,
pace, and timeline of oncology drug discovery and development,
today announced that it is expanding opportunities for its
portfolio of drug candidates and A.I. drug discovery platform into
additional rare pediatric cancers through a collaboration with The
Greehey Children's Cancer Research Institute (GCCRI) at the
University of Texas Health Science
Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA).
GCCRI is one of only two research institutions in the United States focused exclusively on
pediatric cancer research and therapy development.
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The research collaboration will focus on further validating
findings from RADR® regarding the effectiveness of
Lantern's LP-184 and LP-284 in genomically-defined pediatric
cancers, including several without any effective therapeutic
approach. The collaboration will initially leverage GCCRI's
pediatric tumor research models and knowledge base to advance
Lantern's drug candidate, LP-184, for the treatment of rare
pediatric cancers including rhabdomyosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma, MRT
(malignant rhabdoid tumor), Wilms tumor, and ATRT (atypical
teratoid rhabdoid tumor). The National Cancer Institute describes
several of these tumor types to have limited treatment options
available, and many of these tumors continue to progress after
standard therapy.
"Transforming the pace at which we develop new therapies for
pediatric and rare cancers requires that we make constant use of
data, advanced approaches and models, and machine learning to
maximize the therapeutic potential of our portfolio. This
collaboration with Dr. Houghton and his lab will help us
potentially validate multiple new pediatric indications and also
generate insights that may lead to new therapies, and all of this
is being done at a fraction of the cost of traditional drug
development." says Lantern Pharma's, President and CEO,
Panna Sharma.
About the GCCRI and Dr. Houghton
The GCCRI is one of
two research institutions in the United
States solely dedicated to pediatric cancer research, with a
mission to advance scientific knowledge in childhood cancers and to
accelerate this knowledge to develop novel therapeutics. The
research collaboration between Lantern Pharma and the GCCRI will be
led by Dr. Peter Houghton, the
former director of the GCCRI. Dr. Houghton has dedicated his career
to developing scientific approaches to the understanding and
treatment of pediatric cancers including sarcomas, low-grade
gliomas, and ATRTs.
In response to the research collaboration, Dr. Houghton
commented, "The Greehey Children's Cancer Research Institute is
excited to partner with Lantern Pharma to test LP-184, a novel
agent, to evaluate its antitumor activity against a broad range of
preclinical pediatric models of sarcoma and to further its
pediatric cancer development plan. The success of current therapies
for treating advanced cancers in children is limited due to the
development of drug resistance and a lack of novel agents. One of
the main goals of GCCRI is to identify novel drugs that can be
advanced to pediatric cancer trials. We have developed the most
comprehensive preclinical models of pediatric solid tumors and
leukemias to facilitate testing new agents and their clinical
development."
An integral component of Dr. Houghton's research success has
been the development and use of Patient-Derived Xenografts (PDX),
which are clinically relevant cancer models that allow researchers
to test novel therapeutics - such as LP-184 - in-vivo, and to
directly study how tumors respond to treatment. Based on in-silico
studies conducted by Lantern Pharma using the RADR®
platform, LP-184 and LP-284 have the potential to address multiple
pediatric cancers.
In January of 2022, Lantern Pharma announced that it had
received Orphan Drug and Rare Pediatric Disease designations
for its experimental drug candidate LP-184 for the treatment of
pediatric patients with ATRT, an aggressive and rapidly growing
cancer of the central nervous system occurring primarily in
children under 3.
International Childhood Cancer Research Day and
ATRT
The announcement of the collaboration between Lantern
Pharma and the GCCRI comes on International Childhood Cancer
Research Day (ICCD). ICCD shines a spotlight on the over 400,000
children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer around the world
each year. Cancer is the leading cause of childhood deaths, with a
child dying of cancer every three minutes. Improving outcomes for
these pediatric patients will require a global effort to provide
more accurate diagnoses, innovative and effective treatment
options, and community participation and support. This is
especially true for children diagnosed with rare and ultra-rare
cancers that have limited clinical research information and few to
no treatment options available.
One such cancer is ATRT, which is a type of neurological tumor
that primarily affects children under three. These clinically
aggressive tumors have a median survival of 6-12 months and a low
5-year survival rate of 30%. The National Cancer Institute
estimates that there are 600 living patients with ATRTs and 60
newly diagnosed cases each year. There is no standard of care
treatment for children diagnosed with ATRTs, and patients have an
imperative need for novel therapeutics to treat this cancer.
Lantern's Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Kishor Bhatia stated, "International Childhood
Cancer Day reminds us of both success in our abilities to fight
pediatric cancer - as much as 80% are treatable - as well as
existing gaps in this fight. Although many solid tumors in children
are treatable, sub-groups with refractory tumors and poor prognosis
require development of novel strategies as do several rare
pediatric cancers. Our collaboration with GCCRI is particularly
focused on addressing this gap and accelerating our path to
targeted pediatric cancer trials."
Recent Developments with LP-184
Lantern Pharma's drug
candidate LP-184 is a synthetic small molecule drug that
preferentially damages DNA in cancer cells overexpressing specific
biomarkers. LP-184 is currently in preclinical development for
certain genomically-defined solid tumors, including ATRT,
glioblastomas, and pancreatic cancer. In addition to potential use
as a monotherapy, LP-184 has potential to be used as a synergistic
agent in combination with other drugs. The collaboration between
Lantern Pharma and the GCCRI will expand LP-184's development focus
into additional pediatric cancers, and will examine opportunities
for LP-184 as a mono- or combination therapy.
In early 2022, Lantern Pharma announced that it had received
Rare Pediatric Disease and Orphan Drug Designations from the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Lantern's drug candidate
LP-184 for the treatment of pediatric patients with ATRT. In
obtaining these designations and establishing its collaboration
with the GCCRI, Lantern Pharma is aiming to progress LP-184 for
ATRT into a clinical trial in late 2022. In addition to these
recent FDA designations, LP-184 has also been granted Orphan Drug
Designation for the treatment of malignant gliomas and pancreatic
cancer.
About Lantern Pharma:
Lantern Pharma (NASDAQ: LTRN) is
a clinical-stage oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company
leveraging its proprietary RADR® A.I. and machine
learning platform to discover biomarker signatures that identify
patients most likely to respond to its pipeline of
genomically-targeted therapeutics. Lantern is currently developing
four drug candidates and an ADC program across eight disclosed
tumor targets, including two phase 2 programs. By targeting drugs
to patients whose genomic profile identifies them as having the
highest probability of benefiting from the drug, Lantern's approach
represents the potential to deliver best-in-class outcomes.
Please find more information at:
Website: www.lanternpharma.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lanternpharma/
Twitter: @lanternpharma
Forward-looking Statements:
This press release
contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section
27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of
the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These
forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements
relating to: future events or our future financial performance; the
potential advantages of our RADR® platform in
identifying drug candidates and patient populations that are likely
to respond to a drug candidate; our strategic plans to advance the
development of our drug candidates and antibody drug conjugate
(ADC) development program; estimates regarding the development
timing for our drug candidates and ADC development program; our
research and development efforts of our internal drug discovery
programs and the utilization of our RADR® platform to
streamline the drug development process; our intention to leverage
artificial intelligence, machine learning and genomic data to
streamline and transform the pace, risk and cost of oncology drug
discovery and development and to identify patient populations that
would likely respond to a drug candidate; estimates regarding
potential markets and potential market sizes; sales estimates for
our drug candidates and our plans to discover and develop drug
candidates and to maximize their commercial potential by advancing
such drug candidates ourselves or in collaboration with others. Any
statements that are not statements of historical fact (including,
without limitation, statements that use words such as "anticipate,"
"believe," "contemplate," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend,"
"seek," "may," "might," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project,"
"target," "objective," "aim," "upcoming," "should," "will,"
"would," or the negative of these words or other similar
expressions) should be considered forward-looking statements. There
are a number of important factors that could cause our actual
results to differ materially from those indicated by the
forward-looking statements, such as (i) the impact of the COVID-19
pandemic, (ii) the risk that our research and the research of our
collaborators may not be successful, (iii) the risk that none of
our product candidates has received FDA marketing approval, and we
may not be able to successfully initiate, conduct, or conclude
clinical testing for or obtain marketing approval for our product
candidates, (iv) the risk that no drug product based on our
proprietary RADR® A.I. platform has received FDA
marketing approval or otherwise been incorporated into a commercial
product, and (v) those other factors set forth in the Risk Factors
section in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended
December 31, 2020, filed with the
Securities and Exchange Commission on March
10, 2021. You may access our Annual Report on Form 10-K for
the year ended December 31, 2020
under the investor SEC filings tab of our website at
www.lanternpharma.com or on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Given
these risks and uncertainties, we can give no assurances that our
forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, or that any
other results or events projected or contemplated by our
forward-looking statements will in fact occur, and we caution
investors not to place undue reliance on these statements. All
forward-looking statements in this press release represent our
judgment as of the date hereof, and, except as otherwise required
by law, we disclaim any obligation to update any forward-looking
statements to conform the statement to actual results or changes in
our expectations.
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