Replies to post #3124 on Adhera Therapeutics Inc (ATRX)

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$ATRX Some solid news out last week..


Adhera Therapeutics Signs Letter of Intent to Acquire CD71-Targeted Cancer Therapy Paclitaxel Gallium Transferrin
Press Release | 07/19/2022
Baton Rouge, LA, July 19, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Adhera Therapeutics, Inc. (OTCQB: ATRX) ("Adhera" or the "Company"), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, today announces that the Company has entered a Heads of Terms (also known as a Letter of Intent (“LOI”)) agreement with Bio Innovation Group to acquire Paclitaxel Gallium Transferrin (“PGT”), a novel protein complex for targeted treatment of advanced cancers.

PGT is designed to deliver paclitaxel to cancer cells over-expressing Transferrin Receptor 1, also known as CD71 or TFR1. Paclitaxel is a commercially successful drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) in two variations, solvent-based paclitaxel (sb-paclitaxel, brand name Taxol®) and protein-based paclitaxel (nab-paclitaxel, brand name ABRAXANE®). Sb-paclitaxel is approved for breast, ovarian, and lung cancer and Kaposi’s Sarcoma, while nab-paclitaxel is approved for breast, pancreatic, and non-small cell lung cancer. Each are often used off-label for a variety of hard-to-treat solid and liquid tumors.

Gallium nitrate (brand name GANITE®) is FDA-approved for hypercalcemia of malignancy, a common finding in patients with advanced stage cancer. With characteristics similar to iron, gallium has anti-cancer activity and has been shown to have synergistic activity in combination with other anti-cancer drugs.

Transferrin is a human blood protein that functions as an iron transport and natural ligand that binds to CD71-positive cells. Nab-paclitaxel uses albumin as its protein component. Pre-clinical research on PGT suggests that switching the protein component to transferrin could have potential advantages over albumin for developing a new targeted therapy, one that delivers a second, non-cross resistant agent, gallium.

“CD71 is regarded as an optimal target in oncology, yet it has proven elusive to new therapeutics because of its ubiquitous expression on the surface of generic cells, a challenge that we believe PGT could potentially overcome while hitting tumor cells with both paclitaxel and gallium,” commented Andrew Kucharchuk, Chief Executive Officer at Adhera Therapeutics. “Owing to the fact that CD71 is overly expressed on many different refractory tumors, we see an opportunity to develop a strategy that is focused on a specific cancer while simultaneously working to evolve a new drug for a tumor-agnostic secondary indication. PGT is a tremendous value add to our pipeline and we look forward to advancing the research on this promising new therapy.”

While best efforts are anticipated to advance the Heads of Terms agreement to an executed definitive agreement pursuant to which Adhera will acquire PGT, no assurances of such a development are expressed, implied, or guaranteed.