Avacta secures deal for cancer treatment
AVACTA GROUP, the developer of innovative cancer therapies, has entered into a license agreement with Point Biopharma to provide access to Avacta’s technology for the development of tumour- activated radiopharmaceuticals.
Radiopharmaceutical therapy is now seen as a safe and effective approach for treating many types of cancer.
Wetherby- based Avacta said the radiopharmaceutical market is expected to grow to £ 11bn by 2025 and there is a substantial opportunity to grow much faster if safety and tolerability of these effective treatments can be improved.
Point Biopharma is a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company focused on developing radioligands as precision medicines for the treatment of cancer. Radioligands work like cancer- seeking missiles, which seek out and bind to tumour cells. The radioactive molecule destroys the tumour cells’ DNA.
Alastair Smith, chief executive of Avacta Group, said: “The clinical and commercial rationale for our pre| CISION prodrug platform is to improve the safety and efficacy of many existing drugs, as well as generating a pipeline of new and novel cancer therapies.
“In oncology, we believe that this approach will result in better response rates for monotherapies, and a greater safety margin, to enable their use with a larger patient population and as part of combination therapies.”
Avacta will receive an upfront fee and development milestones for the first radiopharmaceutical prodrug totalling £ 7m. It will also receive milestone payments for subsequent drugs of up to £ 6m each and a percentage of any sublicensing income.