Lantern, Allarity Come Together to Tackle Bladder, Prostate Cancer
26 Jul 2021
Small molecular drugAcquisitionCollaborate
Allarity Therapeutics, the pharmaceutical firm that develops cancer treatments using response prediction technology, has exclusively partnered with Lantern Pharma to give the latter global rights to manage, guide, develop, and commercialize Irofulven (LP-100).
Under the terms of the agreement, Lantern will reacquire the Irofulven program and evaluate its potential for advanced development to treat bladder and prostate cancers. Irofulven is a small molecule that causes bulky single-strand DNA adducts that lead to DNA damage in cancer cells, which only the transcription coupled nucleotide excision repair (TC-NER) pathway can fix. This modification stalls the RNA polymerase II, leading to transcription and cell arrest, and apoptosis in specific types of cancer cells.
Irofulven was originally made by MGI Pharma of the U.S. and Eisai of Japan. Allarity acquired global rights to the drug via a license from Lantern Pharma in 2015. After which, Allarity proceeded to a Phase 2 trial in Denmark, intending to find a cure for late-stage, metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer.
Lantern's reacquisition plans include developing the drug for this purpose immediately, particularly in patients with a key mutation in the ERCC2/3 genes.
"Irofulven has the potential to have a key position in helping extend survival in bladder and metastatic prostate cancers, and potentially other cancers that harbor mutations in ERCC2/3 and other related genes. This program is very synergistic with our other drug candidates that are also focused on DNA damage repair and the NER pathway. Most importantly Irofulven has the potential to be an important compound for several challenging cancers that are impacting patients globally,” said Panna Sharma, chief executive of Lantern Pharma, in a press release.
“We are looking forward to advancing and expanding the Irofulven program using our data-driven and precision approach aimed at future patient benefit from this therapy," added Sharma.
The terms of the deal state that Lantern will buy assets and reacquire the global and exclusive rights to develop and market Irofulven. Allarity has agreed to cut any further involvement in the project.
The company will receive an upfront payment for the deal, plus development and regulatory milestone fees, for a total of around $18 million. Further financial terms of the contract were not made public.
Allarity has a robust stable of potential cancer treatments, guided by its proprietary drug response predictor technology — the DRP platform. These include possible therapies for renal cell carcinoma, ovarian cancers, breast cancers, and prostate cancers. The company uses its drug-specific DRP to select patients who, by the genetic signature of their cancer, are found to have a high likelihood of responding to a certain type of treatment.
The DRP method compares sensitive and resistant cancer cell lines with existing clinical tumor biology and prior trial outcomes. The platform can reportedly be used on all types of cancer and is patented for more than 70 anti-cancer medications.
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