Gothenburg, Sweden – 7 October 2024 – Atley Solutions partners with GE HealthCare and a European consortium to expand the use of theranostics in cancer care, with a specific focus on improving the supply and production of astatine-211 radiopharmaceuticals. The initiative, funded by the Horizon Europe framework, aims to bring advanced cancer treatments to a wider range of patients across Europe.
“Initiatives like Thera4Care are of paramount importance to help expand access to precision medicine in Europe,” said Milton Lönnroth, Atley Solutions CEO. “It will both improve the competitiveness of Europe in the development of innovative cancer treatments and ensure that European citizens can benefit. We look forward to contributing to the success of this project.”
Atley Solutions and Thera4Care
Earlier this week GE HealthCare announced the commencement, and its leading industrial role, in Thera4Care, an initiative aimed at revolutionising the use of theranostics to broaden patient access in Europe. The €25.3 million project gathers 29 partners from top European academic and clinical sites, small and medium-sized enterprises, and patient advocacy groups. Atley Solutions is one of the companies included in the consortium.
Focus Areas and Goals of Thera4Care
Thera4Care aims to expand the use of theranostics in Europe by creating, implementing, and disseminating standardised, scalable methods for the production, detection, and monitoring of key theranostic isotopes, from the manufacturing and early delivery of diagnostics through to therapy. The project will strengthen the use and adoption of radiology-based diagnostics and therapies and focus on disease areas (prostate, ovarian, pancreas cancers, and sarcomas), aligning with the growing significance of multi-modal radiotheranostics solutions.
Atley is one of the consortium members that will be heavily involved in project activities related to astatine-211 (At-211). Atley’s activities will focus on the supply chain for At-211 radiopharmaceuticals and will include improving the supply of At-211 in Europe and standardising the manufacturing of At211 radiopharmaceuticals.
The Need for Theranostics in Cancer Care
Cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for nearly ten million deaths in 2022. By 2050, the global burden is expected to grow to 35 million new cancer cases, which is due, in part, to population growth and aging. As a breakthrough approach to treating cancer, theranostics integrates imaging diagnostics and targeted therapeutics for personalised treatment of disease. It uses molecular imaging technologies to visualise tumor receptors and, if present, deliver a radioactive drug to selectively target the tumor cells.
Theranostics is already used to treat a number of late-stage prostate and neuroendocrine cancers, but it is only available in a handful of specialised centers. There is critical incremental clinical need to develop new, innovative radiotheranostics to expand clinical indications of theranostics as well as to expand its use to community centers for broader patient access.
Thera4Care Consortium’s Strategic Goals
With the help of the Thera4Care grant, the consortium aims to:
- Expand the European network of copper-producing isotope good manufacturing practices (GMP) sites using a common hardware and software platform with identical and reproducible methods.
- Develop next-generation SPECT-CT imaging scanners to enable imaging with a wide range of alpha emitters.
- Build artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled imaging and multi-modal theranostic clinical decision support with predictive analytics capabilities, initially targeting prostate cancer to ensure optimised patient outcomes.
- Enhance AI-based tumor quantitation by developing a methodology framework for personalised dosimetry.
Collaboration Across Borders
The project brings together partners from 14 European countries and the United States. The consortium’s main academic partners include Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore & Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS (Italy), Erasmus University (Netherlands), Jules Bordet Institute (Belgium), UniKlinik Essen (Germany), Gregorio Maranon General University Hospital (Spain), and Institut de Cancérologie de l’Ouest (France).
The project is co-funded under the Horizon Europe framework, and part of the Innovative Health Initiative (IHI), a public-private partnership between the European Union and the European life science industries. The Joint Undertaking (IHI JU) under grant agreement #101172788 receives support from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program and COCIR, EFPIA, Europa Bío, MedTech Europe, and Vaccines Europe and Thera4Care contributing partners. The grant agreement was signed on October 1, 2024, and runs through the next five years. For more information please visit the IHI website or Thera4Care project page here.
