Lisata Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:LSTA) has reported promising preclinical results suggesting its iRGD cyclic peptide, certepetide, could enhance the effectiveness of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) in cancer treatment.
The data, presented by Lisata’s licensing partner Catalent at the 16th Annual World ADC San Diego Conference, showed that certepetide may improve tumor penetration and broaden the distribution of cytotoxic agents within tumors.
Catalent’s studies incorporated certepetide as a non-cytotoxic payload in its SMARTag ADC platform.
The results indicated that combining certepetide with cytotoxic payloads could increase ADC efficacy while potentially maintaining safety.
“This data is encouraging as it reinforces the large and growing body of evidence indicating that certepetide can enhance the targeting, penetration, and effectiveness of therapeutic agents - in this case, ADCs - in which it is chemically incorporated or co-administered,” Lisata’s chief medical officer Dr Kristen Buck said in a statement.
Dr Buck highlighted that ADCs are one of the fastest-growing therapeutic categories in drug development. “These results underscore our belief in the value of our licensing partnership with Catalent and supports our strategy of leveraging certepetide’s unique mechanism to enhance the therapeutic potential across all modalities of treatments,” Dr Buck said.
Lisata licensed certepetide and its analogs to Catalent for use with the SMARTag platform, which is part of Catalent’s Enhanced Conjugates innovations. Enhanced conjugates are designed to amplify the effect of cytotoxic payloads by pairing them with non-cytotoxic components.
Shares of Lisata added 8% afterhours on Tuesday on the update.