PanTera secures €134m to boost actinium-225 production

PanTera, a Belgian radioisotope production firm, announced on September 11 that it successfully raised €93 million ($102.4 million) in an oversubscribed Series A financing round. This significant funding aims to expedite the production of actinium-225, a critical element in various investigational cancer therapies. The financing round, the largest in Belgium’s life sciences sector to date, was spearheaded by EQT Life Sciences.

Ion Beam Applications (IBA), a joint venture partner of PanTera alongside the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK CEN), and Belgium’s sovereign wealth fund SFPIM will convert loans valued at €7.2 million into equity. Including €33.8 million in debt financing, PanTera has now raised a total of €134 million, boosting their valuation to €280 million. Despite this, IBA’s shareholding in PanTera will decrease from 47.8% to 31.3%, although IBA will gain roughly €23 million in profit. Following this announcement, IBA's shares rose by 4%, bringing its market capitalization to €3.29 billion.

Actinium-225 plays a pivotal role in targeted alpha therapy, a treatment that links the isotope with cancer antigen-targeting elements to deliver localized radiation to cancer cells while minimizing harm to healthy tissues. Several investigational treatments for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) rely on actinium-225, including Johnson & Johnson’s JNJ-6420, Eli Lilly’s PNT-2001, and Novartis’s AAA-802.

The newly secured funds are intended to support PanTera’s patented photo-nuclear ‘gamma’ process, designed to convert radium-226 into actinium-225. The company is on schedule to produce between 1.5 to 2 Curies (Ci) of the isotope annually by early 2025, capturing a substantial portion of the estimated 3 Ci per year global supply. By implementing this gamma process, PanTera aims to produce over 100 Ci annually by 2029, sufficient to treat more than 100,000 patients.

PanTera's CEO, Sven Van den Berghe, expressed that the company is focused on significantly improving the supply chain in both the short and long term. This effort is in response to what Marijn Kleijwegt, Partner at EQT Life Sciences, described as a “critical actinium-225 supply shortage.” PanTera plans to leverage SCK CEN’s extensive radium-226 reserves and IBA’s Rhodotron electron accelerator to address the complexities and infrastructural challenges contributing to the global shortage of the isotope.

As pharmaceutical companies escalate their clinical trials for alpha particle-targeted therapies across different types of cancer, the demand for actinium-225 is expected to rise. PanTera has already entered into supply agreements with pharmaceutical manufacturers, such as Bayer, for their therapies BAY-3563254 and BAY-3546828, both currently in Phase I trials for mCRPC. The company anticipates that it will secure agreements to utilize over 80% of its production capacity before commencing production.

In summary, PanTera’s successful Series A financing round marks a significant milestone in bolstering the production of actinium-225, an essential component in innovative cancer therapies. With substantial backing and strategic partnerships in place, the company is well-positioned to meet the growing demand for this critical isotope.

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