AstraZeneca has partnered with Fusion Pharmaceuticals to trial the use of radiopharmaceuticals. They plan to test combinations of their existing treatments for a range of unspecified tumour types. Abi Millar speaks to CEO and co-founder of Fusion Pharmaceuticals Dr John Vaillant about the development of the drugs and the new hope they could give patients.

In November, AstraZeneca announced that it had partnered with Fusion Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage oncology company based in Ontario, Canada and Boston, US. Through their research collaboration, they will seek to develop radiopharmaceuticals as a precision treatment for cancer. 

Not to be confused with radiotherapy, radiopharmaceuticals are radioisotopes bound to tumour-seeking antibodies, strung together by a special ‘linker’ molecule. The two companies have agreed to jointly discover up to three new treatments, combining Fusion’s Targeted Alpha Therapies platform with AstraZeneca’s targeted antibodies. 

Dr John Vaillant, CEO and co-founder of Fusion Pharmaceuticals, explains why the two companies decided to collaborate and what their work might mean for cancer patients in future.

Read the rest of this article in the March 2021 edition of Pharma Technology Focus