Telix Pharmaceuticals (ASX:TLX) and US-based RefleXion Medical have signed a new co-development and commercialisation agreement.
Under the agreement, the use of Telix’s prostate cancer imaging agent, Illuccix (kit for preparation of gallium (68Ga) gozetotide) will be expanded with the RefleXion biology-guided radiotherapy (BgRT) platform to guide external beam radiotherapy in real-time.
BgRT is the first and only cancer treatment designed to integrate PET technology as part of external beam radiotherapy delivery. It uses PET tracers as biological guides to signal the location of cancer and guide the delivery of radiotherapy to tumours in real-time.
BgRT has the potential to offer significant advantages over conventional radiotherapy as it may one day enable treatment of multiple tumours per session for metastatic disease, increase the conformality of radiotherapy delivery, and reduce toxicity to healthy tissue.
This approach may facilitate treatment of later-stage cancers than is currently practical for hospitals or tolerable by patients.
The expanded agreement builds on an existing strategic collaboration between the companies. They will conduct and co-fund a BgRT clinical program using Illuccix as a biological guide, seek regulatory approval and jointly pursue commercialization, initially in the US.
The parties will share in any upside generated if successfully commercialised. The clinical program is expected to commence in 2023. The agreement also includes the potential to expand the exclusive relationship beyond the US.
Telix CEO Dr Christian Behrenbruch said, “Following a successful evaluation period, we are pleased to expand our relationship with RefleXion and move ahead with a clinical program with the objective of regulatory approval of Illuccix for BgRT. 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.”
Dr Thorsten Melcher, the chief business officer at RefleXion added, “With PSMA-PET quickly being established as a standard of care in prostate cancer imaging, the clinical program aims to determine whether Telix’s gallium-based tracer can provide a complete and robust signal to guide BgRT to treat all stages of prostate cancer, eventually including metastatic disease. Illuccix offers great accessibility and scheduling flexibility, factors which we believe will be well-suited to the treatment regimen with our BgRT system.”
