Dive Brief:
- Convergent Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing radiopharmaceuticals for cancer, said Wednesday that it has raised $90 million in a Series A financing led by venture investors OrbiMed and RA Capital Management.
- The funding will help Convergent advance is pipeline of “radioantibodies,” including its lead experimental treatment for prostate cancer.
- Research into radiopharmaceuticals, which typically pair a radioactive particle with a targeting compound, has accelerated in recent years, with a number of startups joining large drugmakers like Novartis in exploring the field.
Dive Insight:
While radiopharmaceuticals can be difficult to manufacture, they are an attractive way to more selectively direct radiation to tumor cells while sparing healthy tissue.
Prostate cancer in particular has been a target of choice for radiopharmaceutical developers looking to add new drugs to surgery, chemotherapy and hormonal treatment options. Novartis, for instance, sells a radiopharmaceutical called Pluvicto for advanced forms of prostate cancer. (It also sells another radiopharmaceutical, Lutathera, for tumors of the pancreas or gastrointestinal tract.)
Convergent’s main candidate, dubbed CONV01-α, is a monoclonal antibody linked to the radioactive particle actinium-225 and targeted to the prostate-specific membrane antigen. Once bound to this protein flag, the treatment releases alpha particles into the cancer cell, delivering a direct radioactive dose.
The technology was developed in the laboratory of Neil Bander, a Convergent co-founder and professor of urologic oncology at Weill Cornell Medicine, and licensed from Cornell University.
Convergent plans to advance CONV01-α into the next phase of clinical development, while exploring other radioantibody treatment candidates. According to a federal database of clinical trials, Convergent is currently working with the Weill Medical College on a Phase 1 clinical trial of an actinium-based radiopharmaceutical in men with prostate cancer.