Lisata Therapeutics Announces Mutual Termination of License Agreement with Qilu Pharmaceutical for Certepetide

About this update from Lisata Therapeutics, Inc.

Lisata regains full development rights to certepetide in the Greater China Region BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Jan. 27, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lisata Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: LSTA) (“Lisata” or the “Company”), a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies for the treatment of advanced solid tumors and other serious diseases, today announced that it has mutually terminated the February 2021 Exclusive License and Collaboration Agreement with Qilu Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (“Qilu”). The original agreement, negotiated and implemented with CEND Therapeutics and assumed by Lisata as part of its acquisition of CEND Therapeutics in 2022, granted Qilu exclusive rights to develop and commercialize certepetide, Lisata's proprietary iRGD cyclic peptide product candidate, in the Greater China region including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. This action results in all licenses and other rights granted to Qilu reverting to Lisata. “We appreciate the collaboration and the work performed by Qilu with certepetide over the past few years. As a result of this mutual termination, Lisata regains the full, exclusive rights to certepetide in the Greater China region,” stated David J. Mazzo, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lisata Therapeutics. Notwithstanding, Qilu maintains its obligations, regulatorily or otherwise, to complete and wind down their ongoing Phase 2 clinical study (NCT06261359) evaluating certepetide in combination with standard-of-care chemotherapy in metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Lisata has agreed to negotiate with Qilu the potential licensing of relevant study data from this trial, as appropriate. About Certepetide Certepetide (formerly LSTA1), an internalizing RGD (arginyl-glycyl-aspartic acid or iRGD), cyclic peptide product candidate, is an investigational drug designed to activate a novel uptake pathway that allows co-administered or tethered anti-cancer drugs to target and penetrate solid tumors more effectively. Certepetide actuates this active transport system in a tumor-specific manner, resulting in systemically co-administered anti-cancer drugs more efficiently penetrating and accumulating in the tumor. Certepetide also has been shown to modify the tumor microenvironment resulting in tumors which are more susceptible to immunotherapies. Lisata and its collaborators have...

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