Lantern Pharma generates new class of ADCs with cryptophycin drug-payload

Lantern Pharma announced an important milestone in its antibody-drug conjugate, or ADC, program. In collaboration with Bielefeld University, Lantern has generated a new class of highly specific and highly potent ADCs with a cryptophycin drug-payload. This novel approach utilizes cysteine-engineered antibodies which allows for the development of uniform and homogenous ADCs with precise control of the drug to antibody ratio, or DAR. The drug-payload, cryptophycin, has the potential to improve upon existing ADCs used in the clinical setting by: improving the anti-tumor potency of the ADC molecule, and overcoming drug resistance tumors can frequently develop to existing drug-payloads such as MMAE, or Monomethyl auristatin E. The cryptophycin drug-payload and cryptophycin-ADC, or CpADC, averaged an 80% cancer cell kill rate across the tested cancer cell lines and significantly outperformed MMAE. In a broad range of preclinical studies, the cryptophycin-ADC (Cp-ADC) demonstrated promising picomolar level potency and anti-tumor activity in a wide range of solid tumors, including six cancer indications that are being further evaluated. These six indications include: breast, bladder, colorectal, gastric, pancreatic and ovarian cancer. Initial results have also shown that in high Her2 expressing tumors, Cp-ADC with a DAR of 8 and DAR of 4 is more potent than an MMAE ADC with a DAR of 8. MMAE payloads are used in several commercially available anti-cancer ADCs, including Adcetris, Polivy and Enhertu. Additionally, the Cp-ADC with a lower DAR provides an equivalent tumor kill-rate to that of an MMAE-ADC with a DAR of 8. In a moderate Her2 expressing cell line, the Cp-ADC with a DAR of 8 was about 10 times more potent than a DAR 8 MMAE-ADC.