On February 27, 2023 Lantern Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ: LTRN), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company using its proprietary RADR artificial intelligence ("AI") and machine learning ("ML") platform to transform the cost, pace, and timeline of oncology drug discovery and development, reported that it has entered into a research and development collaboration with TTC Oncology (Press release, Lantern Pharma, FEB 27, 2023, View Source [SID1234627768]). The collaboration will focus on leveraging RADR AI insights to advance TTC Oncology’s first- and best-in-class drug candidate TTC-352 for recurrent ER+ breast cancer patients and additional patient populations potentially identified by RADR. In US women, breast cancer remains the most commonly diagnosed cancer and second leading cause of cancer related deaths. ER+ breast cancers are estimated to account for 75-80% of all breast cancer cases and can have a recurrence rate between 13% and 41%. Globally, the treatment of ER+ breast cancer is estimated to have a $44 billion market potential by 2027.
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"It is of the utmost importance for cancer drug development to understand targeted tumor biology and mechanisms of resistance in order to select the patient population that will benefit the most from novel therapy. We expect that by using Lantern’s RADR AI platform it can save us time and costs in the further successful clinical development of TTC-352 while providing important information for precision patient selection," said Dr. Arkadiusz Dudek, TTC Oncology Chief Medical Officer.
The collaboration will be powered by RADR’s 25+ billion oncology-focused data points, 200+ advanced ML algorithms, as well as its 4 multi-faceted AI drug discovery and development modules. The initial aims of the collaboration will be to 1) identify biomarker or gene signatures to power potential patient selection for an upcoming TTC-352 Phase 2 clinical trial, 2) further characterize TTC-352’s mechanism of action, and 3) discover additional treatment indications for TTC-352.
"Using AI insights generated by RADR, we are able to both sharpen existing clinical programs and uncover additional unrealized clinical potential of Lantern’s and our collaborators’ drug candidates," stated Panna Sharma, Lantern Pharma’s CEO and President. "We believe our AI-powered collaboration with TTC Oncology will accelerate the clinical development of TTC-352 for patients with metastatic ER+ breast cancer and will also identify new potential patient populations that can benefit from TTC-352 treatment," continued Sharma.
Under the terms of the collaboration, Lantern Pharma is receiving an exclusive right to license TTC-352, including any collaboration intellectual property (IP), during an exclusive option period. Additionally, Lantern and TTC will each participate in upfront, milestone, and royalty payments in the event a third party licenses IP resulting from the collaboration. No further financial details were disclosed.
About RADR
RADR is one of the world’s largest AI and ML oncology drug discovery and development platforms, consisting of over 25+ billion oncology-focused data points. These data points consist of large-scale multi-omic data, derived from 130,000+ patient records, 150+ drug-tumor interactions, thousands of drug classes, and covering over 135 cancer subtypes. RADR leverages this data and over 200+ advanced ML algorithms to power its drug discovery and development modules. RADR’s data, capabilities, and insights have powered the development of new Lantern drug candidates, advancement of new indications for existing drugs, and identification of new combinations at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional development approaches.
About TTC-352
TTC-352 is a novel, first-in-class and best-in-class orally available small molecule being developed as a treatment for patients with metastatic estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer who have failed 2 or more prior therapies. TTC-352 is a selective human ER partial agonist (ShERPA) that induces unfolded protein response leading to breast cancer cell death, and acts in a similar manner as hormone therapy by modulating estrogen actions. In the US there are estimated to be around 290,000 cases of breast cancer annually, 80% of which are ER+.
TTC-352 was recently evaluated in a Phase 1 accelerated dose escalation study (NCT03201913) for hormone receptor positive metastatic breast cancer. A total of fifteen patients (n=15) were enrolled in the study and five escalating doses were evaluated. Despite the small cohort size, TTC-352 showed early efficacy signals in heavily pretreated hormone refractory patients (Median PFS was 58 days (95% CI = 28,112)) and showed a favorable safety profile. Additional published trial results can be found here.
About TTC Oncology
TTC Oncology is an emerging biotechnology company founded in 2015. TTC Oncology’s mission is to develop and bring to market a novel, small-molecule therapy, TTC-352, to address the unmet needs of breast cancer patients. TTC has a license from the University of Illinois at Chicago covering the therapy.