Lantern Orphan Status for Pancreatic Cancer Drug

FDA has granted Lantern Pharma an orphan drug designation for LP-184 and its use in treating pancreatic cancer. The company says that the next generation alkylating agent works by damaging DNA in cancer cells that over-express certain biomarkers or that harbor mutations in DNA repair pathways. The therapy is also being developed for several other targeted indications in cancer, it says.

Lantern recently reported that LP-184 demonstrated significant and rapid pancreatic tumor shrinkage, by over 90%, using in-vivo mouse models over eight weeks. In comparison, the tumors in the untreated mice grew by over 11-fold in volume during the same eight-week period, the company says.
 

Lantern is in early stages of designing first-in-human clinical studies for LP-184 in collaboration with the Marvin & Conchetta Greenberg Pancreatic Cancer Institute at Fox Chase Cancer Center.