Lepton announces filing of a PCT application covering its proprietary breakthrough Castling Technology

Lepton Pharmaceuticals announces that it has filed a PCT application with the US Patent Office entitled METHODS FOR ENHANCING THERAPEUTIC EFFICACY OF ISOLATED CELLS FOR CELL THERAPY.

The Patent application covers Lepton’s breakthrough Castling technology, which is, in essence, the manipulation/engineering of miRNA expression for enhanced efficacy and longevity of several immune cells for- cancer therapies. The Castling technology uses a single gene-editing manipulation to simultaneously introduce changes in the expression of two or more miRNAs in the immune cells as a result of the interaction with the microenvironment of different cancer cells. Each miRNA regulates a network of hundreds of genes, making them attractive molecules to exploit in the pursuit of more effective adoptive cell therapies.

The Castling Technology has significant advantages over current cell therapies, including cost effectiveness, safety, potential to reach higher effectiveness and T-cell persistence, as well as versatility. It is potentially applicable not only to autologous T-cell therapy but also to allogeneic T-cell therapy, tumor infiltrating leukocytes (TIL), Regulatory T-cells, Natural Killer T-cells (NK cells), and other cell-based therapies. Moreover, the identity and the number of the miRNAs to be manipulated by the Castling technology may differ depending on tumor type and target cells, thus enabling a tailored made treatment to different types of solid tumors as well as blood cancers.