PALM™ is designed to look like HDL and be attracted to the HDL receptor on cancer cells. However, instead of delivering cholesterol, PALM™ releases an inactive chemotherapy prodrug into the cancer cell, where enzymes convert the prodrug into the active drug.

The receptors targeted by the PALM™ platform are present on many solid tumors but crucially avoid most non-cancerous cells. This makes it effective at treating a variety of tumors while also being uniquely safe.

Become Part Of The Solution

Our first drug candidate PNB-281 (PALM™), will carry paclitaxel, the treatment of choice for many cancers: Breast, Ovary, Lung, and Pancreas. It has a track record of 30 years of proven outcomes but is limited by significant side effects.

In ovarian cancer, paclitaxel is used as both a first-line treatment in combination with other chemotherapies (carboplatin, bevacizumab + PARPi) and as a second-line treatment following a relapse. Treatment is often accompanied by anger, fear, stress, and depression and almost half of patients face treatment reductions or even discontinuations - severely reducing their likelihood of surviving.

Improved Efficacy

Using industry-recognized mice models of ovarian cancer, PALM™ + paclitaxel was shown to be equal to or better than generic paclitaxel at suppressing tumor growth.

PALM™ matched tumor growth suppression using a lower chemotherapeutic dose and further reduced tumor growth safely delivering higher doses of the drug. Additional tests in a variety of ovarian cancer cellular models demonstrated the targeted activity and cancer cell destruction and were also active in pancreatic and breast cancer cell lines, including cells of the hard-to-treat triple-negative breast cancer. The National Cancer Institute tested PALM™ against 60 known cancer cell lines and confirmed our in-house findings.

The data continues to show equivalent efficacy relative to the standard of care, highlighting the potential for improved patient survival while living a normal life.

Superior Safety Profile

Animal safety studies with repeated intravenous dosages of PALM™ + paclitaxel demonstrated avoidance of common paclitaxel side effects such as hair loss, nausea, fatigue, anemia, and neutropenia. Virtually no adverse effects were observed on liver function, nor was there evidence of chemotherapy-induced nerve damage commonly caused by paclitaxel at dosage exposures 100x or more the standard of care.

Repeated intravenous dose studies of PNB-281 in mice demonstrated avoidance of common paclitaxel side effects such as hair loss, nausea, fatigue, and leukopenia. There were no adverse effects on liver function, nor evidence of chemotherapy-induced nerve damage commonly observed with paclitaxel.

The market opportunity for the PALM™ platform is enormous. The size of Peptinovo's beachhead market in the U.S. for ovarian cancer is $145 million. The global market for all cancers treated with paclitaxel is $7.01 billion. 

However, as a platform, PALM™ will be able to carry many different chemotherapies. To date, we have successfully developed 5 different PALM™ + Chemotherapy drugs, which allows us to treat MANY different types of cancer and can lead to MULTIPLE transactions providing returns to investors.

Many larger investors have expressed strong interest in Peptinovo, but are waiting for first in-human data before committing. 
We are seeking early investors who can fund the critical steps leading up to that milestone, which we expect 6-12 months after the first human dosing. These early supporters will own the entire Peptinovo platform, positioning themselves to benefit not only from the valuation inflection point following successful human data with PALM™ + paclitaxel but also from the platform's broad applications carrying other approved chemotherapeutics as well as tumor imaging agents and more. 

In short, those who wait will pay more and get less. Early investors will play a pivotal role in advancing the platform to its first human trial, expected to provide critical safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetic data, along with early signals of efficacy, by the end of 2025.

Peptinovo offers a novel mechanism of action using PALM™ as a synthetic HDL to specifically target cancer cells and deliver proven cancer drugs, something no other company has done to date. While others have attempted to create synthetic HDLs, they've struggled with stability—degrading in the bloodstream and falling apart, which defeats the purpose of shielding the chemotherapy drug—and specificity, lacking attraction to the targeted cells.

Some competitors use peptides or phospholipid substances to encapsulate chemotherapeutic drugs, aiming to shroud the drug before it reaches the cell and potentially improve patient tolerability. Liposomal Particles employ a similar approach. However, these methods often require highly toxic drugs to maintain efficacy, attempting to balance effectiveness with tolerability. Their larger particle size (often 100nm or more) can also work against them, hindering efficient delivery.

The technology within targeted cancer therapy most similar to the PALM™ technology platform are Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADCs), which make use of the ability of antibodies to target specific antigens on the surface of cancer cells and attach cytotoxic payloads to them. The ADC market has seen a flurry of deal making activity in recent years and exceeded 60B in acquisitions in 2023.

ADCs promise greater efficacy than the standard of care but often struggle with tolerability. Several major players, like Sanofi, have terminated their ADC development efforts due to these challenges. ADCs (particle size ~20nm) like Daiichi Sankyo and AstraZeneca’s Enhertu use highly toxic chemicals (such as deruxtecan) to boost efficacy. However, tolerability remains a significant hurdle. Enhertu, for instance, still causes common chemotherapy side effects plus increased liver toxicity. Other ADCs have introduced new side effects like interstitial lung disease and ocular degeneration. On average, these ADC drugs could extend patient life by 6 to 12 months, though Enhertu is showing better survival trends than others. Despite these issues, the market remains vibrant, with Enhertu achieving $1.3 billion in sales last year for treating HER2+ metastatic breast cancer.

The success of ADCs highlights the need for more targeted therapeutics to fight cancer and shows what the market is willing to pay for such innovations (see Pfizer's $43B acquisition of Seagen & Abbvie's $10B acquisition of ImmunoGen both in 2023). While the PALM™ platform can be used instead of ADCs, they could also complement each other as a combination therapy, a common practice in oncology today, to further improve treatment outcomes.

Although regulatory approval and the market launch of a therapeutic typically take many years, Peptinovo’s streamlined 505(b)(2) regulatory pathway could significantly reduce this timeframe. 
Additionally, the company plans to pursue multiple licensing deals with upfront payments, which could be distributed to investors much sooner. In fact, returns for platform therapeutic investors can often come well before regulatory approval, sometimes even during the early stages of clinical testing. Numerous examples exist of companies (e.g. Mersana and PeptiDreams) that have not yet brought a drug to market but are securing substantial collaborations and licensing agreements with larger pharmaceutical partners.

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