[5] The drug was created and patented by the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and subsequently licensed to the US biotech company MGI Pharma.

Eisai acquired MGI in 2007, and the license was returned to UCSD, which then re-licensed the potential cancer drug to Lantern Pharma in 2015.

The drug has undergone a number of clinical trials, mostly for late-stage tumors as well as ovarian and prostate cancers, usually preceded by treatment with carboplatin and paclitaxel.

A multi-center phase 2 trial involving patients with Recurrent or Persistent Ovarian Epithelial or Primary Peritoneal Cancer was well tolerated but irofluven demonstrated modest activity as a single agent.

[7] Despite modest successes demonstrating limited efficacy for late stage tumors that were statistically not significant enough to support broader clinical trials, Allarty decided to stratify patient populations with companion diagnostic tools (biomarkers) to predict outcomes, and thus select that sub-set of patients through DRP (Drug Response Predictors), for whom treatment with irofulven would be most effective.