Non-Smokers Keep Getting Lung Cancer. Dallas’ Lantern Pharma Is Using AI to Fight Back

Lung cancer patients historically have received less support, sympathy, and attention because of the disease’s association with smoking. Despite being the No. 1 cancer killer in the U.S. and increasing knowledge about the addictive nature of cigarettes, stigma persists around the disease, and research funding on lung cancer is lagging behind other cancers. The stigma and lack of funding are frustrating for all with lung cancer and their families, but especially so for the 15 to 25 percent of those diagnosed with lung cancer who have never smoked.

As awareness of the damage smoking does to the body becomes more ingrained in society, the percentage of those diagnosed with lung cancer who have never smoked has increased. The phenomenon has impacted specific populations more acutely. A study from California health systems found that 57 percent of Asian women who have been diagnosed with lung cancer were non-smokers. Another NIH study found that one-third of those diagnosed with lung cancer in East Asia never smoked.

As a non-smoker, getting a lung cancer screening is more complicated. Some insurance companies won’t cover lung cancer screenings for non-smokers. Factors like second-hand smoke and cooking oil fumes are being considered as potential causes. The percentage of those diagnosed with lung cancer has risen from 15 percent in the 1970s to 33 percent in the 2000s, but there is no treatment specifically for never smokers with lung cancer.

“Never smokers don’t respond to immunotherapy, they have a very different response profile, and often they’re caught very late,” says Lantern Pharma CEO Panna Sharma. “That makes it more aggravating because never smokers don’t have a reason to do a lung cancer screening.”

Dallas-based Lantern Pharma’s clinical trial of its treatment for never smokers with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has experienced promising results. The AI-focused pharmaceutical company’s Phase 2 trial of HARMONIC’s patient cohort experienced an 86 percent clinical benefit, which measures how the patient feels. The trial has a 43 percent objective response rate, which is the percentage of patients in a study who have a partial or complete response to treatment within a specific time frame. No safety concerns were reported in the trial.

Though the trial was small, with only seven patients, it was encouraging. Of the six patients with a clinical benefit, half saw a reduction in tumor size by 51 percent, and the other half saw their tumor reduced by 13 percent.

Given the impact in East Asian countries, Lantern moved quickly. It has been approved to begin trials in several Asian countries and has started activating sites in Japan and Taiwan, including the globally recognized National Cancer Center in Tokyo.

Lantern pioneered using AI to leverage data and create new treatments at lower costs, meaning the company can profitably design drugs that treat smaller patient populations. Traditional pharmaceutical development is time-consuming and expensive enough to eliminate many conditions that don’t have the patient numbers to generate a return on investment, but Lantern’s process brings smaller patient populations into play for drug development.

Called HARMONIC, the never-smoker lung cancer treatment is the most advanced of the company’s drugs, but another of its solid tumor treatments recently received a Fast Track designation from the FDA. “It’s quite exciting that we moved this far as quickly and with efficient use of capital. We’re not one of those biotech firms burning hundreds of millions of dollars a year,” Sharma says. “Our burn rate has been under $20 million, which is very different from what some investors think about biotech. That’s been our philosophy, but it is due to the capital-efficient nature of using AI properly.”

Moving forward, Lantern plans to continue its work in Asia and expand to eight more testing sites, in addition to the still operating stateside sites, to gather more data on the HARMONIC treatment. Lantern plans to partner with providers and pharmaceutical companies in Japan and South Korea to expand its footprint and reshape drug development.

“We need more patients. This is just an initial cohort, and we must also look for a longer response duration,” Sharma says. “But this is a wonderful signal that using AI to develop, target, and understand how molecules work can be meaningful and make a game-changing difference for patients.”