Science-driven development of cancer targeting radiopharmaceuticals
Akiram Therapeutics develops next generation radiopharmaceuticals to specifically and efficiently visualize and treat solid cancers
Akiram Therapeutics is focused on designing and developing novel radioactive cancer targeting molecules for diagnostics and therapy.
Systemic targeted radiopharmaceuticals can selectively deliver radioisotopes to tumors via the bloodstream, and accumulate in the tumor tissue. The accumulated radioactivity enables visualization and/or eradication of the cancer tissue.
Targeted radioimmunotherapy against incurable cancer
Progress in diagnostics and treatment of cancer has led to a significantly improved survival rate, but for some types of cancer, the survival rate is stil close to zero. For anaplastic thyroid cancer, there are no effective curative treatments today, and the median survival is only a few months after diagnosis. The need for new therapies is therefore urgent.
Akiram Therapeutics develops a new type of targeted radioimmunotherapy which has shown very good results in several studies and has the potential to become first-in-class. In animal studies, the survival rate has been 100%, and the tumors have disappeared entirely with just one treatment.
Targeted radioimmunotherapy is a new and rapidly growing field expected to become the next big breakthrough in cancer treatment and has received great interest from big pharma.
Unique antibody guides radiation to the tumor
Radiation has been used as a treatment for cancer for over a hundred years, but traditional radiotherapy is suboptimal for treating spread disease and causes damage and side effects in surrounding tissue.
In radioimmunotherapy, an antibody is used to guide the radioactive substance to the cancer cells and eradicate them.
A key factor and major challenge in developing radioimmunotherapy is finding an antibody with suitable properties to bind only to the tumor so it can be eradicated without other tissues being damaged.
Akiram´s antibody is the result of many years of research by leading
researchers at Uppsala University and SciLifeLab. Hundreds of experiments, tests, and analyses have made it possible for the company to develop an antibody that, in studies, has shown to have the suitable properties to bind strongly only to cancer tumors and radiate these selectively while other tissues are left untouched.
