Telix gets ImaginAb’s assets on the cheap
Alpha-emitting radiopharmaceuticals might be flavour of the month, but on Monday Telix picked up a pipeline of beta-emitting projects from ImaginAb for a knock-down up-front fee of $10m in cash and $31m in shares. Privately held ImaginAb’s therapeutic hopefuls, which are all labelled with the beta-emitter lutetium-177, are preclinical; Telix highlighted assets against integrin αvβ6 and the hot target DLL3 as particularly exciting. But the Australian group might be just as interested in ImaginAb’s research facility and intellectual property covering small engineered antibody formats – this technology could be used with a broad range of radioisotopes, with alpha emitters of “particular interest”, Telix said. Alpha emitters such as actinium have become a popular arena for deals; Telix itself is developing both alpha and beta-emitting projects but its lead asset, the PSMA-targeting TLX591, uses lutetium-177. Telix is also unusual in having assets that use antibodies as well as small molecules for targeting; most radiopharma work involves small molecules. ImaginAb, meanwhile, will focus on developing its imaging candidate, CD8 ImmunoPET, which is currently in phase 2.
ImaginAb’s preclinical radiopharmaceutical pipeline
| Project | Target | Setting |
|---|---|---|
| IAB2MA | PSMA | Prostate cancer |
| IAB56 | Integrin αvβ6 | Solid tumours |
| IAB57 | DLL3 | SCLC |
| IAB58 | Undisclosed | Solid tumours |
| IAB59 | Undisclosed | Ovarian cancer |
Source: OncologyPipeline & ImaginAb website.
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