On December 17, 2020 Lantern Pharma (Nasdaq: LTRN), a clinical-stage biopharma company using its proprietary RADR artificial intelligence ("A.I.") platform to transform cancer drug development and identify patients who will benefit from its targeted oncology therapeutics, reported a collaboration and research agreement with the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center and Kennedy Krieger Institute (Press release, Lantern Pharma, DEC 17, 2020, View Source [SID1234572987]). The collaboration will focus on the further development of Lantern’s LP-184 in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Based in Baltimore, Johns Hopkins is a leading research center for brain cancers and one of the largest brain tumor treatment and research centers in the world with a focus on treating an extremely large number of patients affected by all types of brain tumors.
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The collaboration will focus on advancing the targeted use of LP-184 in defined subtypes of GBM and clarifying the most promising clinical applications for the drug candidate. The goal of the collaboration is to develop a clinically ready program that has characterized the drug candidate with the most biologically relevant and robust genomic or biomarker signature. By having a gene signature that can be used in identifying patients that have the potential for the highest response, Lantern can potentially accelerate future clinical trials and shorten the time to achieving patient benefit for GBM patients.
The research program is at the forefront of translational cancer medicine and will use patient-derived cancer cells that are studied using physiologically relevant in vitro and in vivo models. This innovative approach allows researchers to more precisely understand the biology of what actually happens inside the cancer tumor, which will more accurately establish the precise biomarker signatures and help provide data-driven insight into additional mechanisms that can be leveraged in the fight against brain cancer.
"Collaborations with world-leading cancer centers are an essential part of our strategy to rapidly advance the insights driving our therapeutic programs and grow the power of our RADR A.I. platform by adding millions of new, unique, and proprietary data points in areas of high unmet need in cancer," said Panna Sharma, CEO of Lantern Pharma. "This relationship with Johns Hopkins is expected to allow us to use state-of-the-art models and biological methods to add more physiologically relevant data and insights into the mechanisms of LP-184, and further shape our algorithms for how our drug candidates interact with specific brain cancer subtypes. We believe the unique insights we gain will equip Lantern with critical advantages in our aim of accelerating LP-184’s path to clinical trials and ultimately commercialization while saving millions of dollars in development costs. This data-enabled and biomarker-based approach has the potential to meaningfully bend the cost curve of cancer drug development and help bring personalized cancer therapies to patients with reduced economic burden, and greater efficacy."
The research will be led by John Laterra, MD, Ph.D., an internationally recognized researcher in neurology, oncology, and neuroscience. Dr. Laterra serves as the Co-Director of the Brain Cancer Program and the Director of the Division of Neuro-Oncology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he specializes in investigating mechanisms of brain tumor malignancy, tumor vascular biology, and identification of new therapeutic targets in gliomas.
LP-184 is a DNA-damaging small molecule drug candidate currently in preclinical development for certain genomically defined solid tumors, including glioblastomas. As a next-generation alkylating agent that preferentially damages DNA in cancer cells that overexpress certain biomarkers and can cross the blood-brain barrier, we believe LP-184 has the potential to be used as both monotherapy as well as a synergistic agent in combination with other drugs.
"We are focused on finding how LP-184 can exploit certain molecular mechanisms in gliomas to offer improved disease management and survival for glioblastoma patients," said Dr. Kishor Bhatia, Chief Scientific Officer at Lantern Pharma. Dr. Bhatia continued, "We look forward to our collaboration with Johns Hopkins, the Brain Cancer Program and Dr. Laterra who is at the forefront of GBM research. His approach combines real world patient insights along with advanced methodologies and patient-derived models that can improve the quality of the insight and provide more relevant data on efficacy. We look forward to sharing these results with the broader scientific and clinical community."
Among several objectives, the research goals are to determine whether certain genomic signatures generated with RADR, Lantern’s A.I. platform, can predict response to LP-184 and a more favorable outcome as compared to standard of care agents being used today. LP-184 has been advanced using Lantern’s proprietary RADR A.I. platform that leverages over one billion curated cancer data points, machine learning, genomics, and computational biology to accelerate the discovery of potential mechanisms of action, and biomarker signatures that correlate to drug response in cancer patients.
Although significant recent advances have been made in the use of targeted and biomarker-based therapies in cancer, GBM remains an area that has not experienced significant improvement in patient outcomes. The overall five-year survival rate for GBM across all stages remains at only 5.5% in the US, and GBM accounts for nearly 52% of all primary brain tumors each year according to the National Cancer Institute.