NEW YORK – Telix Pharmaceuticals will develop and commercialize its gallium-68-based PET imaging agent Illuccix with RefleXion's biology-guided radiotherapy, or BgRT, platform in prostate cancer, the companies announced on Friday.
The PET imaging tracer that Melbourne, Australia-based Telix will bring to the partnership, Illuccix, specifically targets the prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) on the surface of prostate cancer cells and delivers a radioactive isotope that lights up patients' prostate lesions on PET imaging.
Within the exclusive arrangement, Hayward, California-based RefleXion will use this PET technology to track the location of cancer cells and in real-time guide its external-beam radiation therapy directly to them. According to the firms, this approach could offer an advantage over traditional radiation by allowing for irradiation of multiple tumor metastases in the same session and reducing toxicity to healthy tissue, thereby boosting the efficacy and tolerability of the radiation treatment.
In this present collaboration, RefleXion and Telix will conduct and cosponsor a clinical trial program for the BgRT therapy with the Illuccix imaging agent to guide external beam radiation. The firms plan to seek regulatory approval and jointly commercialize their combined products.
The companies are focusing first on bringing this to the US, though the terms of their agreement allow for the possibility of expanding access to the therapy and imaging agent beyond the US. The partners will share any upside that the therapy generates, and the collaboration also includes the possibility of expanding the relationship.
"This partnership demonstrates the potential for Illuccix and other molecularly targeted imaging agents in our pipeline to be used as a tool to both detect the presence of metastatic disease and guide treatment using innovative complementary technologies such as BgRT," Telix Group CEO Christian Behrenbruch said in a statement.
The firms plan to begin clinical trials of their combined products in 2023.