Actithera hopes to do FAP differently

The growing field of radiopharmaceuticals targeting fibroblast activation protein (FAP) has a new player in Actithera, a private start-up that this week tapped venture capitalists for $75.5m in a series A financing round. The company, based in the US and Norway, was founded in 2021, and claims to have a pipeline of preclinical assets, but the only one whose target is disclosed hits FAP. The most advanced radiopharmaceutical players here are Novartis, with an asset acquired from the now bankrupt Clovis, and Perspective Therapeutics, while a flurry of recent first-time entrants has seen Philogen's OncoFAP-23, Chengdu New's NRT6020 and Jiangsu HengRui's HRS-6768 enter phase 1 trials. However, Actithera wants to do things differently; it says achieving a short half-life to limit toxicity and long tumour retention to boost efficacy has proved elusive when targeting FAP, but reckons its focus on using a different linker, and especially on forming a permanent, covalent bond with FAP, will give it a better chance than others. One project that fell by the wayside is PNT6555, derived from Lilly's $1.4bn acquisition of Point Biopharma; a phase 1 trial of this has been terminated in favour of next-generation assets.

Selected radiopharmaceuticals targeting FAP

Source: OncologyPipeline.