Cancer Targeted Technology LLC

Published: August 07, 2020 09:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE) Cancer Targeted Technology (CTT), a privately-held Seattle-based biotechnology company, announced that the NIH awarded CTT $1.44M on the second year of a competitive Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase IIB grant. The three year grant commenced in 2019 and totals $3.3M and this second year of funding supports the current CTT1403 clinical trial. The clinical trial, conducted at University of California, San Francisco with Dr. Rahul Aggarwal as Principal Investigator, is a 30-40 patient dose escalation/expansion trial in men with advanced castration-resistant prostate cancer. The trial is designed to show safety and efficacy of CTT1403 and is halfway through the initial dose escalation phase. To date there have been no safety issues with the drug and the pharmacokinetic data support the longer circulation time of CTT1403 in the blood stream as compared to other PSMA agents currently in clinical trials. "These PSMA-targeted agents are already transforming how prostate cancer is diagnosed and treated and we are very pleased that the NIH continues to support the development of these exciting new agents. CTT1403, with its longer circulating time and better tumor targeting characteristics, offers distinct advantages in this treatment arena providing the patient with cost and treatment benefits,” commented Dr. Beatrice Langton-Webster, CTT’s CEO and Principal Investigator on the grant. The unique chemical structure for CTT1403 was conceived of by Dr. Cliff Berkman, Professor at Washington State University (WSU). CTT1403 targets Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) which is over-expressed on prostate cancer. Two features make CTT1403 unlike other PSMA-targeted drugs currently in development: 1) Due to a unique core scaffold, CTT’s molecules bind irreversibly to PSMA and this distinctive mode of binding enables rapid uptake of the drug within the tumor; and 2) CTT1403 is engineered to increase the circulation time of the drug in the body which further substantially increases the dose of drug that accumulates at the tumor sites. CTT1403 is labeled with the radionuclide Lutetium-177 and once delivered to the tumor, the radionuclide acts to destroy the tumor cells. CTT completed two clinical trials at UCSF with CTT1057, the companion PET diagnostic imaging agent to CTT1403, with excellent safety and imaging results for both prostate cancer and renal cell carcinoma. CTT1057 is undergoing further development for prostate cancer by CTT’s licensing partner AAA/Novartis. CTT1057 and CTT1403 serve as a theranostic pair to both diagnose and treat solid tumors that express PSMA, and are being used together in the current clinical trial. More information on the trial can be found at clinicaltrials.gov. View source version on businesswire.com https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200807005027/en Contacts Cancer Targeted Technology Dr. Beatrice Langton-Webster bealw@cancertargetedtechnology.com

Cancer Targeted Technology Receives an SBIR Grant and Announces Expansion of Its Pipeline October 23, 2018 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cancer Targeted Technology (CTT), a privately-held Seattle-based biotechnology company focusing on small molecules that bind to pivotal enzyme cancer targets, announced that it received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to develop CTT1700, a unique prodrug targeted at men with prostate cancer that express Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA). PSMA is over-expressed on prostate cancer and this expression increases as the cancer metastasizes and becomes hormone-resistant. Unlike other agents targeting PSMA in development, CTT’s agents bind irreversibly to PSMA. This distinctive mode of binding enhances uptake and results in rapid and extensive internalization by tumor cells, leading to increased accumulation of the drugs within the tumor. CTT1700 relies on a novel drug-release technology that is triggered by the pH inside of the cell to selectively release the chemotherapy once inside the tumor cells. As a result, toxic side effects to bystander or normal cells are reduced or eliminated. "This new chemotherapeutic drug, CTT1700, like all of CTT’s drugs, are based on the same versatile modular PSMA-targeting platform. This platform allows for rapid development of various PSMA-targeted agents by conveniently swapping out the payload,” commented Dr. Cliff Berkman, Professor of Chemistry at Washington State University (WSU) and consultant to CTT as its Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Berkman and WSU were instrumental in developing the new drug-release technology for CTT1700 that was licensed to CTT in 2017. CTT’s pipeline now includes three important drugs targeting cancers that express PSMA. CTT1057 is a diagnostic PET imaging agent capable of rapidly and sensitively detecting metastatic disease in prostate cancer patients. CTT1057 demonstrated excellent results in Phase 1 clinical trials completed in 2017 and the drug was licensed to AAA/Novartis in January, 2018. The second agent, CTT1403, is a radiotherapeutic drug that delivers a therapeutic dose of 177-lutetium to tumor cells expressing PSMA. CTT1403, unlike other PSMA-targeted drugs, includes an albumin binding component that imparts a long circulation time allowing for more of the drug to get to the tumor cells. CTT1403 is expected to start Phase I clinical trials in prostate cancer patients in early 2019. CTT1700, currently in preclinical development, is the third agent in CTT’s pipeline and would be the first drug to use binding to the PSMA biomarker to target chemotherapy to prostate cancer. Contacts Cancer Targeted Technology Dr. Beatrice Langton-Webster bealw@cancertargetedtechnology.com

Our CEO was recently interviewed by Mr. Bob Crimmons, co-founder of iMedExchange, a social networking site for physicians and is reproduced below. The interview was put on the iMedExcahnge website as a blog for further comment and can be found at iMedExchange. "As a man approaching middle age, I have to say I listened to Beatrice Langton-Webster, CEO of Cancer Targeted Technology (CTT), with a little extra interest. CTT is developing a PET imaging agent that helps diagnose and monitor early and late-stage cancers; their first product, CTT-1057, is aimed at prostate cancer. Incorporated in 2005, with initial patent filings, CTT became fully operational in 2009 when Dr. Langton-Webster took the helm, bringing 25 years of experience in pharmaceutical drug development and commercialization. I asked Bea to share some of the challenges facing early stage pharma companies and what is in store for the future of CTT. With a little over 5 years of development, clinical trials and FDA approval , CTT has a lot of work ahead but in reality this timing is rapid for this type of diagnostic agent due in part to similarities with another product currently on the market. Bea stated "it is important for Pharmas and Biotechs to understand not only what makes their products better than their competitors, but also what the patient and physician really need and will use." Bea is excited about CTT1057 due to significant benefits it has over existing agents. According to Bea, "CTT1057 targets an important molecular marker in prostate cancer, and will have important advantages over the marketed imaging agent, Prostascint, and other agents in development, including the ability to specifically image abdominal and distal bone disease, the ability to collect better resolution images and the ability to image smaller tumor lesions. For the physician it is important that we develop an agent that has the capabilities to specifically detect minimal disease in multiple locations. For the patient, it is important that we develop a diagnostic with time and cost convenience. We will be able to provide CTT-54 images within a couple of hours with better overall diagnostic accuracy , no associated toxicity and at a cost that is lower than our competitors". A critical challenge for CTT, at this stage, is understanding how physicians would use this new diagnostic agent. For example, CTT1057 would allow physicians to relatively quickly, easily and safely monitor metastatic disease and the effectiveness of cancer treatment in ways that are not practicable today; whether this new capability would be embraced by physicians and what physicians would need to support it are questions CTT would like to ask physicians. Relatively speaking, CTT is on a fast track to commercialization but there is still a lot of work to be done, including clinical trials, FDA approval... and some more fund raising. Physicians will play a vital role in all aspects of this work, from product development to monotoring clinical trials and FDA advocacy. Physicians even play an important critical role in fund raising by supporting CTT's market validation claims with venture capital firms and potential strategic partners. CTT is a paradigm example of the life sciences innovation coming out of iMedExchange's own back yard and we'll watch with interest as Bea shepherds the company through the next phases of the process."