DALLAS — Lantern Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ: LTRN) has released a groundbreaking artificial intelligence module—predictBBB.ai™—to the public, offering researchers open-access capabilities to forecast whether small-molecule drugs can cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB), a long-standing challenge in central nervous system (CNS) drug development.
Lantern claims the tool achieves 94% accuracy, 95% sensitivity, and 89% specificity using real-time machine learning. The technology is powered by the company’s proprietary molecular data lake and ensemble algorithmic processing, which analyzes millions of compounds and billions of molecular features.
“This public release has the potential to be a paradigm shift in how pharmaceutical organizations and researchers approach CNS drug development,” said Lantern CEO Panna Sharma. “We’re transforming one of drug discovery’s biggest obstacles into a competitive advantage.”
Crossing the BBB remains one of the most difficult hurdles in drug development, with only 2–6% of small molecules able to penetrate it effectively. Lantern’s predictive tool aims to close this gap and improve early-stage decision-making in CNS therapeutic research.
The company’s platform currently ranks among the top performers on the Therapeutic Data Commons Leaderboard, outperforming both academic and commercial models. Lantern’s ensemble AI approach incorporates synthetic data augmentation, advanced molecular representation, and custom feature engineering to deliver near-instantaneous analysis.
The launch comes as the BBB technology market is projected to grow from $1.4 billion in 2023 to nearly $10 billion by 2032, highlighting the rising demand for AI-driven tools in neurological drug discovery.
