Madison, WI (Press Release) – Cellectar Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq:CLRB), a clin­i­cal-stage bio­pharma­ceu­tical com­pany focused on the discovery, devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of targeted treat­ments for can­cer, an­nounces that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued U.S. Patent No. P150207US03, entitled “Alkylphosphocholine analogs for mul­ti­ple myeloma imaging and ther­apy.” The claims in this pat­ent cover a method of use for CLR 131, the com­pany's pro­pri­e­tary lead Phospholipid Drug Conjugate™ (PDC™) in mul­ti­ple myeloma (MM). Cellectar and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) are joint owners of the pat­ent and Cellectar has licensed ex­clu­sive rights to it from WARF.

“The issuance of this pat­ent and its asso­ci­ated claims ex­pands the pro­tec­tion for CLR 131 in our most ad­vanced indi­ca­tion, mul­ti­ple myeloma,” stated Jim Caruso, chief exec­u­tive officer of Cellectar Bio­sciences. “Multiple myeloma remains an incurable dis­ease with reduced sur­vival benefits seen for patients with each successive line of ther­apy. We hope to dem­onstrate that CLR 131’s unique mech­a­nism of action could enable extended sur­vival among patients in this pop­u­la­tion, even those in later lines of treat­ment.”

About CLR 131

CLR 131 is Cellectar's inves­ti­ga­tional PDC under devel­op­ment for sev­er­al orphan-designated can­cers. CLR 131 uti­lizes the com­pany's pat­ented phos­pho­lipid ether tumor targeting de­livery plat­form to de­liver the cytotoxic radioisotope iodine-131 directly to tumor cells. CLR 131 is cur­rently being eval­u­ated in a Phase 2 clin­i­cal trial for re­lapsed or re­frac­tory MM and select re­lapsed or re­frac­tory lym­phomas as well as a Phase 1b dose escalation clin­i­cal trial in patients with re­lapsed or re­frac­tory MM. The U.S. Food and Drug Admin­istra­tion has granted orphan drug desig­na­tion for CLR 131 in the treat­ment of MM and pedi­atric neu­ro­blas­toma.

About Phospholipid Drug Conjugates™

Cellectar's prod­uct can­di­dates are built upon a pat­ented de­livery and retention plat­form that uti­lizes op­ti­mized PDCs to target can­cer cells. The PDC plat­form is used to sel­ectively de­liver diverse onco­logic pay­loads to can­cerous cells and can­cer stem cells, in­­clud­ing hema­to­logic can­cers and solid tumors. This sel­ective de­livery allows a pay­loads’ thera­peutic window to be modified, which may main­tain or en­hance drug potency while reducing the num­ber and severity of adverse events. This plat­form takes ad­van­tage of a metabolic path­way uti­lized by all tumor cell types in all cell cycle stages. Compared with other targeted de­livery plat­forms, the PDC plat­form’s mech­a­nism of entry does not rely upon spe­cif­ic cell surface epitopes or an­ti­gens. In addi­tion, PDCs can be con­ju­gated to mol­e­cules in nu­mer­ous ways, thereby in­creas­ing the types of mol­e­cules sel­ectively de­liv­ered. Cellectar be­lieves the PDC plat­form holds poten­tial for the discovery and devel­op­ment of the next gen­er­a­tion of cancer-targeting agents.

About Cellectar Biosciences, Inc.

Cellectar Biosciences is focused on the discovery, devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of drugs for the treat­ment of can­cer. The com­pany plans to de­vel­op pro­pri­e­tary drugs in­de­pen­dent­ly and through re­search and devel­op­ment (R&D) col­lab­o­rations. The core drug devel­op­ment strat­e­gy is to leverage our PDC plat­form to de­vel­op thera­peutics that spe­cif­i­cally target treat­ment to can­cer cells. Through R&D col­lab­o­rations, the com­pany’s strat­e­gy is to gen­er­ate near-term capital, supple­ment in­ternal resources, gain access to novel mol­e­cules or pay­loads, ac­cel­er­ate prod­uct can­di­date devel­op­ment and broaden our pro­pri­e­tary and part­nered prod­uct pipe­lines.

The com­pany's lead PDC thera­peutic, CLR 131, is in a Phase 1 clin­i­cal study in patients with re­lapsed or re­frac­tory (R/R) mul­ti­ple myeloma (MM) and a Phase 2 clin­i­cal study in R/R MM and a range of B-cell malig­nan­cies. In 2018 the com­pany plans to ini­ti­ate a Phase 1 study with CLR 131 in pedi­atric solid tumors and lym­phoma, and a sec­ond Phase 1 study in com­bi­na­tion with ex­ternal beam radi­a­tion for head and neck can­cer. The com­pany’s prod­uct pipe­line also in­cludes two pre­clin­i­cal PDC chemo­thera­peutic pro­grams (CLR 1700 and 1900) and part­nered assets in­clude PDCs from mul­ti­ple R&D col­lab­o­rations.

For more in­­for­ma­tion please visit www.cellectar.com.

Forward-Looking State­ment Disclaimer

This news re­lease con­tains for­ward-looking state­ments. You can identify these state­ments by our use of words such as "may," "expect," "be­lieve," "antic­i­pate," "intend," "could," "esti­mate," "con­tinue," "plans," or their neg­a­tives or cognates. These state­ments are only esti­mates and predictions and are subject to known and unknown risks and un­cer­tain­ties that may cause actual future ex­peri­ence and results to differ ma­teri­ally from the state­ments made. These state­ments are based on our cur­rent beliefs and ex­pec­ta­tions as to such future out­comes. Drug discovery and devel­op­ment in­volve­ a high degree of risk. Factors that might cause such a ma­teri­al dif­fer­ence in­clude, among others, un­cer­tain­ties re­lated to the ability to raise addi­tional capital, un­cer­tain­ties re­lated to the ability to attract and retain part­ners for our tech­nolo­gies, the identi­fi­ca­tion of lead com­­pounds, the suc­cess­ful pre­clin­i­cal devel­op­ment thereof, the com­ple­tion of clin­i­cal trials, the FDA review process and other gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tion, our pharma­ceu­tical col­lab­o­rators' ability to suc­cess­fully de­vel­op and com­mer­cial­ize drug can­di­dates, com­pe­ti­tion from other pharma­ceu­tical com­pa­nies, prod­uct pricing and third-party reim­burse­ment. A com­plete description of risks and un­cer­tain­ties re­lated to our business is con­tained in our periodic reports filed with the Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion in­­clud­ing our Form 10-K for the year ended De­cem­ber 31, 2017. These for­ward-looking state­ments are made only as of the date hereof, and we disclaim any obli­ga­tion to up­date any such for­ward-looking state­ments.

Source: Cellectar.