Swedish radiopharmaceutical production company Alpha Therapy Solutions and Advanced Nuclear Medicine Ingredients S.A., a wholly owned European subsidiary of Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited, have been jointly awarded a 990,000 EUR, a Eurostars-2 research grant from the EUREKA Association.

The Eurostars program supports international innovative projects involving at least two different participants from different Eurostars countries and led by R&D-performing small and medium-sized enterprises. Eurostars projects are awarded access to public funding, which originates from participating countries’ national budgets and the European Union Horizon 2020 framework.

A novel anti-cancer Targeted Alpha Therapy

Funding has been awarded to Telix and ATS to develop a novel anti-cancer Targeted Alpha Therapy (TAT) using the alpha-particle emitting radioisotope; astatine-211. The scope of the project, with a budget of 990,ooo EUR over three years, comprises scale up radiochemistry, preclinical studies and support for a clinical proof-of-concept study, states the companies. The efficient scale-up production of astatinated radiopharmaceuticals is made possible through the use of ATS’ novel automated astatine production platform.

“Our platform aims to mitigate these perceived challenges by making the isotope purification and radiopharmaceutical production steps, safer, more reliable and more efficient.”

“We are honored and excited to enter this collaboration with Telix Pharmaceuticals. We look forward to helping to bring this project into clinical development and to validating our platform for the clinical production of astatinated radiopharmaceuticals. Astatine-211 presents some highly favorable characteristics for use in Targeted Alpha Therapy. However, the challenges of producing clinical-scale quantities of this short- lived radioisotope, combined with the lack of commercially available equipment for automated production have so far limited more widespread development. Our platform aims to mitigate these perceived challenges by making the isotope purification and radiopharmaceutical production steps, safer, more reliable and more efficient,” says Milton Lönnroth, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at ATS.

Photo of the Alpha Therapy Solutions team. Photo: Alpha Therapy Solutions