NEW YORK – Allarity Therapeutics said on Monday that it is expanding into the service provider space, hoping to generate additional revenue by offering up its drug response predictor (DRP) and comprehensive gene expression analysis services to other biotech companies.
The firm previously used its Allarity Medical Laboratory solely for in-house drug development. Now, it is securing service agreements, within which other companies are paying to use Allarity's DRP to analyze transcriptomic signatures and predict drug response or resistance, or use Allarity's technology to comprehensively analyze patients' gene expression.
According to Allarity, the revenue that it generates from these agreements will reduce its laboratory cost base and enable greater, industry-wide adoption of the DRP platform.
Thanks in part to the revenue Allarity has already generated through these services, the firm now has a cash balance of $18.5 million, which it believes will allow it to advance its lead therapeutic candidate, stenoparib, into a registration-directed clinical trial. Allarity has been evaluating stenoparib, or 2X-121, in a Phase II clinical trial involving patients with advanced, previously treated ovarian cancer deemed likely to respond based on Allarity's DRP companion diagnostic. Patients with DRP scores above 50 are eligible to receive stenoparib in the Phase II trial.
The Boston-based firm said on Monday that two patients in that trial have been receiving the treatment for more than 14 months. Stenoparib, which Allarity licensed from Eisai in 2017, is designed to inhibit both PARP1/2 and tankyrase 1/2. The firm believes that the drug's unique mechanism of action provides advantages over other therapies for advanced ovarian cancer. Based on the 14-month duration of treatment, Allarity has halted enrollment in the Phase II trial and is planning to advance stenoparib into a registration-directed trial that will generate data for a regulatory filing with the US Food and Drug Administration.
"We are excited that our strengthened cash position now provides the financial foundation to accelerate stenoparib's clinical development toward FDA approval," Allarity CEO Thomas Jensen said in a statement.