Nucleus RadioPharma has raised $56 million, with GE HealthCare and venture capital firm Eclipse leading the “oversubscribed” series A financing round, the startup company announced on Tuesday.
The firm bills itself as the world’s first fully integrated developer, manufacturer and supplier of radiopharmaceuticals. Others contributing included Echo Global, the Fox Chase Cancer Center, Granger Management, Mayo Clinic, Mercy Health, and the University of Missouri. Nucleus RadioPharma will use the money to establish manufacturing facilities—with one located in Rochester, Minnesota, near Mayo—along with building novel technology for distributing its products.
“Theranostic radiopharmaceuticals are offering promise for millions who currently have limited treatment options,” CEO Charles S. Conroy, MBA, said in an Oct. 17 announcement. “As truly targeted therapies, these drugs are proving not only to be highly effective but also to maintain a superior safety profile. This funding advances the reach and impact of these life-saving agents, allowing for therapies that can be mass-produced, and offers hope to those with few alternatives.”
Eclipse and Mayo Clinic created Nucleus RadioPharma one year ago, supplying $6 million in seed funding. They noted at the time that such radiopharmaceuticals are poised to become a “core modality” for cancer diagnosis, staging and treatment. However, their success has been “broadly hampered” by manufacturing and supply chain challenges. These treatments are expensive and face short-lived radioactivity, needing to be produced daily in small batches (and sometimes even individually for each patient). Such limitations also can sometimes force patients to wait more than a month for the treatment to be manufactured and delivered to the hospital, experts noted.
“Conceivably, many cancers have the potential to be treated with a properly designed radiopharmaceutical and yet, very few patients with cancer are receiving this kind of treatment,” radiologist Geoff B. Johnson, MD, PhD, chair of nuclear medicine at the Mayo Clinic and chief scientific officer of Nucleus RadioPharma, said in the announcement.
The company also will use the funds to develop a new supply chain network aimed at moving, tracking and delivering materials to patients “faster and more efficiently.” Nucleus hopes to cover the entire process from identifying target molecules to testing treatments, supporting regulatory approvals and delivering patient-ready medications.
The Mayo Clinic and GE HealthCare recently launched a strategic collaboration as the two seek to develop new innovations in theranostics. Both are working in tandem to produce new research and products, aspiring to “transform the experience of patients and clinicians in the practice of radiology.”
In May, consulting firm Vizient labeled theranostics as a top trend to watch in diagnostic radiology, following the FDA’s 2022 approval of Pluvicto, a therapy for metastatic prostate cancer. Diagnostic imaging providers have been eyeing theranostics as a potential new service line to help increase service volumes for PET/CT and SPECT exams needed to stage and monitor the disease during treatment. Supply shortages of the drug, however, present an ongoing challenge.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.