Pattern Pharma

Pattern Pharma is a life sciences company
focused on harnessing the innate immune system
to combat cancer and infectious disease

About us

Our Mission:

To make patients innately better

Pattern Pharma is a Toronto-based life sciences company whose innovative therapeutic harnesses the innate immune system to combat cancer and infectious disease.

For over two decades, Pattern Pharma’s founders and its scientific team have been dedicated to unlocking the power of the innate immune system.

Pattern’s lead product, P2PAR, is built on the following foundations:

The immune system is our most powerful tool for maintaining good health. The flip side is that immune failure (dysregulation) underlies many cancers and infectious diseases.
The immune system is composed of two key pillars: innate immunity and adaptive immunity.
The innate immune system is the first to respond to initial infection and can sense threats through hard-wired receptors, namely Pattern Recognition Receptors such as Toll-like Receptors (TLRs).
P2PAR safely and effectively activates innate immunity by simultaneously targeting TLR1, TLR2, TLR4 and TLR6 (which are all located on the cell surface of innate immune cells) – the result being a differentiated and proven approach to fighting cancer and infectious disease.

With our deep expertise in innate immunity and TLRs, our main focus is on overcoming the limitations and challenges faced by current immuno-oncology therapies.

P2PAR: Our Lead Product

Pattern’s lead product, P2PAR, is an immunotherapeutic which activates innate immune cells to kill cancer cells and safely activate an efficacious innate and adaptive immune response, thereby overcoming the limitations of many traditional therapies.

Pattern’s P2PAR therapeutic is an improved, proprietary pharmaceutical-grade formulation of a safe and effective predecessor product.

P2PAR has high molar activity (a human dose is 3μg), is easy to store and use, and is effective when administered systemically (subcutaneously, intramuscularly, intravenously or intranasally) or intralesionally.

Pattern is about to enter a first-in-human clinical trial addressing a specific neoplasia caused by Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). In this context, Pattern plans to initiate a Phase 1/2 clinical trial in Q2 2021 at Massachusetts General Hospital.

P2PAR: How it works

P2PAR is an agonist of TLR1, TLR2, TLR4 and TLR6, and it specifically activates key innate immune cells including macrophages, dendritic cells (DCs) and natural killer cells.

In addition, P2PAR also mobilizes the adaptive immune system (via DCs) and creates protective immune memory through a process of in situ vaccination. This process occurs without any need to previously identify and isolate antigens or genetic material.

P2PAR triggers the transient production of Type I and II interferons and cytokines including chemokines by immune cells (TNFα, IL-12, IFN-β, IFN-γ, IL-1α, IL-1β, GM-CSF, MCP-1, IL-27, etc.). P2PAR also causes the membrane expression of costimulatory molecules (CD80, CD86, CD40) and MHCI and MHCII molecules on antigen-presenting cells, as well as the production of effector mediators such as nitric oxide and peroxynitrite.

Opportunities: Pipeline in a Product

Pattern has a pipeline of P2PAR opportunities based on strong supporting evidence from the predecessor product of its safety and therapeutic efficacy in a range of indications. In this context, P2PAR’s mechanism of action differs from conventional antivirals or other antimicrobials, since it elicits a broad innate immune response.

Pattern’s pipeline indications include other HPV-associated cancers (5% of all cancers), other cancers caused by viruses (10% of cancers), other cancers caused by infections in general (15% of cancers), and cancers more generally.

Our first in-human clinical study will be in an indication which sits at the intersection of cancer and infections disease, namely a specific neoplasia caused by Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), and which is a precursor to squamous cell carcinoma. Pattern has selected HPV in order to leverage five third-party HPV clinical studies with an earlier version of the product, which showed an average cure rate of 94%.

Based on existing clinical and pre-clinical data, there are also combination therapy opportunities with conventional cancer therapies and/or other immunotherapies such as checkpoint inhibitors.

Collaborations

Pattern has collaborated closely with the Massachusetts General Hospital (Harvard), the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), McGill University (Goodman Cancer Centre and TB Centre), and the University of Toronto.