A new $56 million investment is fueling a young drug maker's big swing at cancer

Jeff Kiger, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.
Updated ·3 min read

Oct. 17—ROCHESTER — A young drug maker with significant Mayo Clinic investment —

Nucleus RadioPharma

— raised $56 million to fund a nationwide "big swing" at cancer starting with a Rochester manufacturing site.

"This is a new and really exciting way to diagnose and treat cancer. I think it will fundamentally change the way that cancer is treated," said CEO Charles Conroy. "And that's going to happen not in decades, but over the course of just the next few years."

Co-founded in September 2022 by Mayo Clinic and the California-based venture capital firm Eclipse, the radiopharmaceutical firm announced finalizing an "oversubscribed" round of Series A funding on Tuesday, Oct. 17. The $56 million in financing was led by Eclipse and GE HealthCare with additional investment by Mayo Clinic, Echo Global, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Granger Management, Mercy Health and University of Missouri.

Part of this new money will go toward the manufacturing and development facility inside Rochester's Two Discovery Square complex at 415 Second Ave. SW. When completed, it will occupy a total of 12,000-square-feet with 7,000-square-feet of manufacturing on the first floor and another 5,000-square-feet of office and research space directly above it on the second floor.

Conroy estimated the first drug doses will start rolling out by early in the third quarter of 2024. Nucleus RadioPharma, which has already hired

Mayo Clinic's Dr. Geoff Johnson as its chief scientific officer,

expects to have 25 employees in Rochester by the end of 2024 and 40 to 45 within two years.

While Rochester will be the first of Nucleus RadioPharma's manufacturing sites, it won't be alone for long. The $56 million investment will finance the construction of multiple manufacturing sites.

"These are very intricate and time sensitive drugs, so it would be almost impossible to deliver them from just one site within the United States," said Conroy.

While he wouldn't name any other potential locations, he did explain the goal is to be near other Destination Medical Centers that are running clinical trials on cancer research like Mayo Clinic.

The science supporting radiopharmaceuticals is still relatively new and is only being used to treat prostate cancer today. The drug aims to deliver radiation directly to targeted cancer cells with much less "collateral damage" than traditional cancer treatments. When asked how much the drug would cost, Conroy estimated that each customized dose could cost in the tens of thousands of dollars.

When the Rochester site is up and running, he expects that 90% of Nucleus RadioPharma's manufacturing will be for researchers using the drugs for clinical trials.

Conroy anticipates that research will open the door for radiopharmaceuticals to treat lung, liver and renal cancers in the near future, which would mean more Nucleus RadioPharma's production will go directly to patient treatment.

"Conceivably, many cancers have the potential to be treated with a properly designed radiopharmaceutical and yet, very few patients with cancer are receiving this kind of treatment," wrote Mayo's Geoff Johnson in the announcement of the funding.

In addition to ramping up the manufacture of customized doses, the company is building out its supply chain monitoring systems to track the location of each dose as well as make sure it is kept at the proper temperature.

Overall, Conroy describes Nucleus RadioPharma's current situation as a dog catching a car. The science is proven and now it is one of several companies trying to build a new type of drug industry from the ground up.

"We're taking the biggest swing at this, bigger than anybody ever has, but we certainly want to help lots of different people get to the goal line. There's been about $5 billion invested in this field in the last five years and there's 75 new companies that are working in this space that didn't exist five years ago," he said. "This is really, really exciting. It's going to be something we look back at years from now and 'Wow, what did we do before we had this?' It's pretty neat."