Aktis Oncology announced it has completed an $84 million financing round to bring its class of targeted radiopharmaceuticals to a large patient pool with a broad range of tumor types.
Aktis CEO Matthew Roden/Courtesy of Aktis Oncology
Aktis Oncology announced Thursday the completion of an $84 million Series A extension financing round to bring its class of targeted radiopharmaceuticals to a large patient pool with a broad range of solid tumors.
While other companies like Novartis, Fusion Pharmaceuticals and Clovis Oncology are also using radiopharmaceutical therapies to treat cancer, Aktis states its technology is different. This is because it uses potent alpha radiation to destroy cancer cells by targeting and deeply penetrating tumors. The radiation then quickly clears from the rest of the body to avoid harm to healthy tissue.
According to Matthew Roden, Ph.D., president and CEO of Aktis, one of the company’s primary goals is to use this targeted technology to treat the most common types of cancer. If successful, this would make the treatment available to a much larger pool of patients that are currently not addressed with radiopharmaceutical approaches on the market.
“The reason we’re doing this is because we believe that our approach has the potential to really improve anti-cancer benefit relative to conventional treatments, and we think it can be done safely,” Roden told BioSpace. “To bring that to the most common tumor types is one of the main goals of the company.”
After the technology is fully developed and tested, there’s another challenge - distribution. Radiopharmaceuticals require “just in time” manufacturing and delivery, meaning the drug has to be made fresh each week.
And while there are a few organizations that have been able to distribute the drugs this way, Roden said none of them distribute them to large populations on a global scale.
This is one reason why treating a large pool of patients is so difficult. But Roden said Aktis is prepared for the challenge.
“We’re setting up a scalable system that is, most importantly, reliable in terms of supplying patient needs,” he shared. “But it’s also meant to be disruptive in terms of how we do it to make it much more cost-effective and efficient than it has been in prior iterations in the field.”
Among the company’s supporters are several industry giants, including Bristol Myers-Squibb, Novartis and MRL Ventures Fund, the therapeutics-focused corporate venture fund of Merck & Co. This is largely due to the quickly growing market for radiopharmaceuticals. According to ResearchandMarkets.com, the global radiopharmaceuticals market is expected to reach $7.9 billion by 2025.
As BioSpace previously reported, Aktis was founded in 2021 and garnered $72 million in its Series A financing round. This most recent round brings the company’s total capital to $161 million.
One of the drivers of Aktis’ early success lies in its partnerships. On Wednesday, the company announced partnerships with three medical radioisotope manufacturers: NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes LLC, Niowave, Inc. and TerraPower LLC, for preclinical, clinical and commercial supply of Actinium-225, an alpha emitter with a 10-day half-life.
As for the company’s next steps, Roden said Aktis plans to enter the clinic in 2024, potentially with multiple programs. Though he couldn’t give any specific details, he said partnerships will continue to be a priority for the company moving forward.
“We’re always on the lookout for extra innovation to bring into the company. We’re always on the lookout for bigger and larger partners,” Roden said. “Partnering is in the DNA of this company.”
