ASX-listed biotech Radiopharm Theranostics has secured the supply of a valuable isotope that will enable the company to soon kick off a human trial of a treatment designed to tackle brain cancer.
Management says the isotope, Therbium-161 (Tb-161), boasts great promise in helping to expand treatment options for patients living with cancer - but it is in short supply.
So the company has inked a deal to secure the supply of Tb-161 from TerTheva BV – a Netherlands-based company that specialises in the production of radionuclides, which are an unstable form of a chemical elements that release radiation as they break down and become more stable.
TerTheva says it is directing its full focus towards producing Tb-161 as it builds a global platform to meet the growing demand for radionuclides in oncology and nuclear medicine.
Radiopharm says its proposed trial will be the world’s first dose-escalating radiopharmaceutical study that leverages Tb-161 in brain tumours.
Radiopharm Theranostics chief executive officer and managing director Riccardo Canevari said: “This novel therapeutic isotope represents a potential first-in-class targeted radiotherapeutic that can expand treatment options for patients living with cancer. We believe that Radiopharm has achieved a strong competitive advantages from being the first company to do a phase 1 trial using this isotope and securing supply of this relatively scare isotope.”
Theranostics comprises an area of medicine focused on deploying various levels of radiation to image, identify and destroy cancer tumours, while leaving healthy tissue unharmed.
Radiopharmaceuticals comprise radioisotopes – isotopes that contain tiny amounts of radioactive substances – attached to small molecules or antibodies which act as targetting agents. The drugs are injected into a patient’s blood stream and seek out the cancer cells. They attach themselves to tumours and then image them or destroy them, depending on which radioisotope is used.
The aim is to deliver better-targeted treatment than conventional radiation treatment which is delivered outside the body in broad beams.
Radiopharm plans to link Tb-161 with one of its proprietary peptides to create RAD 602 – a treatment it is developing to target the enzyme in humans known as protein tyrosine phosphatase mu (PTPmu).
PTPmu is expressed in cancer cells but has only limited expression in healthy tissue. Radiopharm is scheduling a first-phase dose-escalating trial of RAD 602 for patients suffering brain cancer, starting in the fourth quarter of this calendar year.
RAD 602 is only one of eight treatments currently in the company’s clinical trials pipeline and is targeting cancers that include pancreatic, breast, lung and prostate in addition to brain cancers.
Radiopharm’s deal with TerTheva will initially last three years with options to extend for a further two years. Radiopharm says the costs of its purchases of Tb-161 will be met from its existing budget and that it will own all data generated from its clinical trials, as well as any inventions and discoveries made.
Addressing the high unmet medical needs of those suffering cancer and becoming a leader in pharmaceutical products to address those needs is Radiopharm’s stated mission … and the need is huge. Almost one in two people will get cancer during their lifetime and about 150,000 Australians are diagnosed with the disease every year.
The huge personal toll created behind the stark statistics has spawned a massive medical sector aimed at finding a cure for cancer. The size of the global cancer therapeutics market was estimated at US$166 billion ($247.5 billion) two years ago and is predicted to climb to a staggering US$335 billion ($500 billion) by 2030.
For brain cancer treatment alone, the global market is expected to jump from US$2.31 billion ($3.44 billion) in 2021 to US$4.43 billion ($6.61 billion) by 2029, according to Fortune Business Insights. And an estimated 20-40 per cent of all cancer patients will develop metastatic cancer of the brain sometime during their illness.
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By Mark Irving
