WATERTOWN, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Tarveda Therapeutics (Fomerly Known As Blend Therapeutics), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of potent and selective precision oncology medicines, which it refers to as Pentarin^® miniature drug conjugates, for the treatment of patients with various solid tumor malignancies, today announced that the company will present data from its first in human study of PEN-866 at the 2020 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Annual Meeting, occurring April 27-28, 2020.

PEN-866 is the initial clinical program from Tarveda’s HSP90 binding miniature drug conjugate platform, which is designed to bind to activated Heat Shock Protein 90 (HSP90) to accumulate and release its potent topoisomerase 1 inhibitor (SN-38) payload in solid tumors.

Details of the poster presentation are as follows:

Title: Characterization of PEN-866, a Heat Shock Protein 90 (HSP90) binding conjugate of SN-38, in patient plasma and tumors from the first in human study
Date: Monday, April 27, 2020
Time: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM ET
Location: AACR Virtual Annual Meeting I accessible on the AACR website at www.aacr.org

About Tarveda Therapeutics^®, Inc.

Tarveda Therapeutics is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of potent and selective precision oncology medicines, which it refers to as Pentarin^® miniature drug conjugates, for the treatment of patients with various solid tumor malignancies. Tarveda’s Pentarin^® miniature drug conjugates are designed to take the best properties of both small molecule drugs and antibody drug conjugates to form a miniature drug conjugate able to penetrate into solid tumors, selectively bind to the desired tumor targets and accumulate the anti-cancer payloads directly in tumor cells. The anti-cancer payload is retained in tumor and then released over time causing the anti-cancer payload to become active in the tumor.

Tarveda currently has two Pentarin^® miniature drug conjugates in clinical trials. Its first clinical program, PEN-866, is the initial candidate from HSP90 binding miniature drug conjugate platform. HSP90 is a molecular chaperone that is highly activated in the harsh tumor environment across a wide range of solid tumor cancers, but which remains relatively dormant in normal tissue. Tarveda’s binding moieties of its HSP90 binding miniature drug conjugates have been shown to bind with high affinity to HSP90, which is frequently activated and overexpressed in solid tumor cells. PEN-866 has completed its Phase 1 dose escalation portion of its “all comers” trial in various types of solid tumors. In addition to PEN-866, Tarveda is developing additional miniature drug conjugates on its HSP90 binding miniature drug conjugate platform to target other promising anti-cancer payloads such as kinase inhibitors and radioisotopes to solid tumors. Tarveda’s second clinical program, PEN-221, is a Pentarin^® miniature drug conjugate currently in clinical evaluation for the treatment of patients with solid tumors expressing SSTR2 on the cell surface as is seen in neuroendocrine tumors and small cell lung cancer. PEN-221 is currently progressing through its Phase 2a trial. For more information regarding Tarveda, go to: http://www.tarvedatx.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200421005243/en/