Lithea

A new way to treat solid tumours

Lithea’s patented technology platform is designed to overcome one of oncology’s biggest challenges: poor drug delivery to solid tumours. By placing chemotherapy directly inside the tumour using implantable pellets made from clinically proven minerals, the platform achieves high local drug concentrations while sparing healthy tissue. It combines sustained release, intracellular delivery, and the ability to ”recharge” with systemically administered drugs, offering a versatile foundation for treating a wide range of solid tumours. Built to be modular and drug-agnostic, the platform supports multiple indications from a shared scientific and manufacturing base.

Research areas

Lithea’s intratumoral delivery platform is designed to address a fundamental challenge in oncology: getting enough of the right drug to the right place. Starting with bone cancer, our research is now expanding into several solid tumour types where local control and reduced toxicity can make a critical difference.
Osteosarcoma

Osteosarcoma

LIT 1001

Osteosarcoma is a rare and aggressive bone cancer that primarily affects children and young adults. Lithea’s lead candidate delivers chemotherapy directly into the tumour to improve local control and reduce systemic side effects.

Breast Cancer

Breast Cancer

LIT 2001LIT 2002

Breast cancer often recurs at the original tumour site despite systemic treatment. Lithea’s platform enables local delivery of chemotherapy during or after surgery to target residual cancer cells and lower the risk of relapse.

Lung Cancer (Bone Metastases)

Lung Cancer (Bone Metastases)

LIT 3001

Lung cancer frequently spreads to the bones, where treatment options are limited. Lithea’s implants are designed to deliver drugs directly to bone metastases, increasing local efficacy and reducing systemic toxicity.

Bladder Cancer (Bone Metastases)

Bladder Cancer (Bone Metastases)

LIT 4001

Bladder cancer with bone involvement is difficult to treat with conventional chemotherapy. Lithea’s approach targets these sites with sustained local therapy, aiming to control progression and ease treatment burden.

Pipeline

Lithea’s core strength is the scalability of its intratumoral drug delivery platform. The company is advancing a pipeline of follow-on candidates that apply the same mineral-based pellet technology to new drugs and tumor types. The modular nature of the platform allows efficient adaptation to different clinical targets, with each new program benefitting from the development groundwork established by LIT1001. Our lead candidate, LIT1001, is being developed for osteosarcoma and is currently in late preclinical stage with first-in- human studies planned.
DiscoveryPreclinicalManufacturing PrepClinical ReadinessOsteosarcomaBreast CancerLung CancerBladder CancerLIT 1001LIT 1002LIT 2001LIT 2002LIT 3001LIT 4001

Publications

Osteosarcoma treatment comprises pre-surgical chemotherapy followed by radical surgery and further chemotherapy cycles, but the prognosis has been far from satisfactory. No new drugs or treatment modalities have been developed for clinical use in the last four decades. We describe a nano-hydroxyapatite (HA)-based local drug delivery platform for the delivery of doxorubicin (DOX), a cornerstone drug in osteosarcoma treatment.

The efficacy of the developed drug delivery system was evaluated in an orthotopic human osteosarcoma xenograft in the proximal tibia of mice. After tumor development, the tumor was surgically resected and the void filled with the following: (1) No treatment (G1); (2) nHA only (G2); (3) DOX-loaded nHA (G3). In-vivo tumor response was assessed by evaluating the tumor-induced osteolysis at 2 weeks using micro-CT followed by in-vivo PET-CT at 3 weeks and ex-vivo micro-CT and histology. Micro-CT imaging revealed complete destruction of the tibial metaphysis in groups G1 and G2, while the metaphysis was protected from osteolysis in G3. PET-CT imaging using 18F-FDG revealed high metabolic activity in the tumors in G1 and G2, which was significantly reduced in G3.

Using histology, we were able to verify that local DOX delivery reduced the bone destruction and the tumor burden compared with G1 and G2. No off-target toxicity in the vital organs could be observed in any of the treatment groups histologically. This study describes a novel local drug adjuvant delivery approach that could potentially improve the prognosis for patients responding poorly to the current osteosarcoma treatment.

Full article: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-4983/15/8/232

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