On January 22, 2025 Lisata Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: LSTA) ("Lisata" or the "Company"), a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies for the treatment of advanced solid tumors and other serious diseases, reported preliminary Cohort A data from the ongoing Phase 2 ASCEND trial (NCT05042128) being conducted at 25 sites across Australia and New Zealand led by the Australasian Gastro-Intestinal Trials Group (AGITG) and coordinated by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Clinical Trial Centre at the University of Sydney (Press release, Lisata Therapeutics, JAN 22, 2025, View Source [SID1234649846]). The data will be presented in a poster session, entitled, "AGITG ASCEND: Randomized, double-blind Phase II study of certepetide or placebo added to gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel in patients with untreated metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: Initial results," at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) (Free ASCO Whitepaper) Gastrointestinal (ASCO GI) Cancers Symposium on Friday, January 24th at 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. (PST) in San Franscisco, California. For a detailed summary of the poster presentation, please see the abstract available on the ASCO (Free ASCO Whitepaper) GI website: meetings.asco.org/abstracts-presentations/241497.

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The Phase 2 double-blind, randomized (2:1 ratio), placebo-controlled trial is evaluating certepetide, Lisata’s proprietary investigational iRGD cyclic peptide product candidate, in combination with standard-of-care (SoC) chemotherapy (gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel) for the treatment of metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (mPDAC). Following the acquisition of Cend Therapeutics, Lisata collaborated with AGITG to amend the inherited trial’s protocol to ensure it respected international regulatory standards and was optimized to generate clinically meaningful data that would effectively guide the next stages of development. The amended protocol is designed to assess the efficacy of two different dosing regimens of certepetide in two separate treatment cohorts: Cohort A, with 95 patients receiving a single intravenous (IV) dose of certepetide 3.2 mg/kg or placebo in combination with SoC, and Cohort B, with 63 patients receiving two IV doses of certepetide 3.2 mg/kg or placebo administered 4 hours apart in combination with SoC.

Cohort A of the ASCEND trial completed enrollment in the third quarter of 2023. The preliminary data from Cohort A demonstrate a median overall survival (mOS) of 12.68 months for the certepetide treated group, compared to 9.72 months for the placebo treated group. Despite a numerical trend in 6-month PFS favoring the certepetide treatment group, no significant improvement in median PFS was observed (mPFS of 5.5 months in both groups). However, the observed mOS and objective response rate (ORR) benefit are positive with 4/65 (6.2%) complete responses in the certepetide treated group, compared to 0/28 (0%) the placebo treated group.

"The data from Cohort A are as we expected and corroborate our decision to add Cohort B to the ASCEND protocol," stated Kristen K. Buck, M.D., Executive Vice President of Research and Development and Chief Medical Officer of Lisata. "The increase in overall survival and the observation of 4 complete responses in the certepetide-treated group compared to none in the placebo group for Cohort A, coupled with our expectation of even better outcomes in Cohort B, where we believe early indications show a strong separation in mPFS benefiting patients treated with certepetide, support our plans to advance certepetide development to Phase 3 in early 2026."

About Certepetide

Certepetide (formerly LSTA1), an internalizing RGD (arginylglycylaspartic acid or iRGD), cyclic peptide product candidate, is an investigational drug designed to activate a novel uptake pathway that allows co-administered or tethered anti-cancer drugs to target and penetrate solid tumors more effectively. Certepetide actuates this active transport system in a tumor-specific manner, resulting in systemically co-administered anti-cancer drugs more efficiently penetrating and accumulating in the tumor. Certepetide also has been shown to modify the tumor microenvironment resulting in tumors which are more susceptible to immunotherapies. We and our collaborators have amassed significant non-clinical data demonstrating enhanced delivery of a range of emerging anti-cancer therapies, including immunotherapies and RNA-based therapeutics. To date, certepetide has also demonstrated favorable safety, tolerability, and clinical activity in completed and ongoing clinical trials designed to test its ability to enhance the effectiveness of standard-of-care chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer. Lisata is exploring the potential of certepetide to enable a variety of treatment modalities to treat a range of solid tumors more effectively. Certepetide has been awarded Fast Track designation (U.S.) and Orphan Drug Designation for pancreatic cancer (U.S. and E.U.) as well as Orphan Drug Designation for glioma (U.S.) and osteosarcoma (U.S.). Additionally, certepetide has received Rare Pediatric Disease Designation for osteosarcoma (U.S.).