Radiopharm (ASX:RAD) enters JV with MD Anderson to develop novel cancer therapies - Kalkine Media

Highlights

• Radiopharm has launched Radiopharm Ventures, LLC, a joint venture company with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
• The new entity will focus on developing novel radiopharmaceutical therapeutic products for the benefits of cancer patients.
• Radiopharm will work with experts at MD Anderson to take forward the preclinical development of potential therapeutic candidates.

Radiopharm Theranostics (ASX:RAD) has shared an upbeat update regarding a new collaboration.

The ASX-listed biotech firm has launched a joint venture company, Radiopharm Ventures, LLC, in collaboration with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MD Anderson). MD Anderson is one of the most reputed cancer centres in the world and recently rated #1 in the US for cancer care, as per the company.

The establishment of the joint venture company is aimed at developing novel radiopharmaceutical therapeutic products for cancer. Initially, the entity will focus on developing a minimum of four therapeutic products based on the intellectual property of MD Anderson.

Effective from 11 September 2022, Radiopharm Ventures gained a licence access from MD Anderson for certain patent and technology rights for development and commercialisation. 

Effective cancer radiopharmaceuticals need tumor-specific targets not found in healthy tissues. Researchers at MD Anderson have created novel platforms to discover and validate tumor-specific antigens. This provides promising candidates for creating new radiopharmaceuticals.

Advancing preclinical development

The joint venture acts as a platform to integrate MD Anderson’s pioneering and patented technologies in antigen discovery and molecular imaging with Radiopharm’s expertise in radiopharmaceuticals.

Following are the resources for Radiopharm to work upon:

From the laboratory of David Piwnica-Worms, M.D., Ph.D., chair of Cancer Systems Imaging at MD Anderson.

The first potential therapeutic candidate for the study is a radiotherapeutic antibody. Developed in the laboratory of David Piwnica-Worms, it is a humanised immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody against the tumor-specific antigen B7-H3, also known as CD276. Its expression is high in different kinds of common tumors but not in healthy cells.

According to preclinical studies, the candidate radiotherapeutic antibody efficiently eradicates resistant colorectal cancers in laboratory models. Based of extensive preclinical work already performed, B7-H3 might start phase I clinical trial in less than 15 months from today.

Work of Samir Hanash, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Clinical Cancer Prevention at MD Anderson

Further, MD Anderson has a dataset of proteins found specifically on the surface of cancer cells in different types of cancer, resulting in new targets with cancer-restricted expression. Radiopharm Ventures can use this dataset to choose additional targets and plan to prioritise selection based on unmet needs in cancer.  

Following the selection of targets, Radiopharm will collaborate with Hanash and Piwnica-Worms to take forward the preclinical development of a minimum of 3 potential therapeutic candidates.

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The share price of Radiopharm stood at AU$0.16 apiece on 14 September 2022.