Monopar, Singapore U Collaborate to Evaluate MNPR-101 Radiopharma

Monopar Therapeutics Inc, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on cancer treatments, will collaborate with the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) to evaluate radiopharmaceutical versions of MNPR-101 in several aggressive cancers. MNPR-101 is a novel, first-in-class humanized monoclonal antibody to the urokinase Plasminogen Activator Receptor (uPAR).

Anand Jeyasekharan, of CSI Singapore, NUS, will be the principal investigator on the collaboration. Jeyasekharan is a physician-scientist who runs a research laboratory investigating the molecular and biological responses of cancer cells to oncology drugs, as well as treats cancer patients and leads early phase oncology clinical trials at NUS.

Under term of the collaboration, Jeyasekharan will initially investigate uPAR expression levels in tissue samples from patients with various subtypes of advanced soft tissue sarcoma (ASTS). Studies have shown uPAR to be a promising target for ASTS. He plans to assess retrospective patient samples to identify which subtypes of ASTS have the highest expression of uPAR, thus making them the most promising to pursue in a human clinical trial.

“uPAR is an exciting target for ASTS, and a radiopharmaceutical approach using MNPR-101 has the potential to combine personalized medicine with precision oncology,” said Jeyasekharan. “We have the chance here to use immunohistochemistry on patient tissue samples to identify high uPAR expressing cancers, to then work with our colleagues in radiology and nuclear medicine to radiolabel MNPR-101 for a subsequent clinical imaging study. For patients with positive scans, a therapeutic isotope such as Lu-177 or Ac-225 may provide an interesting option for a clinical trial.”

“It is exciting what Dr. Jeyasekharan and NUS are aiming to do here,” said Chandler Robinson, CEO of Monopar. “They are seeing if we can select patients most likely to respond at the time of tissue biopsy. And from there, if you can see it on PET/SPECT imaging with a radiopharmaceutical version of MNPR-101, you can treat it. Dr. Jeyasekharan is uniquely equipped to undertake this endeavor, too, as he can oversee both the preclinical work as well as the overall management of patients under standard Phase 1 protocols.”