With multiple drugmakers already announcing a slew of radiopharmaceutical moves this year, France’s Orano Med is doubling down on the nuclear medicine craze.
Clinical-stage Orano Med—which is developing targeted alpha therapies for cancer—has kicked off construction of a 250 million euro ($263 million) plant in the Bessines-sur-Gartempe commune of France.
Dubbed the Advanced Thorium Extraction Facility (ATEF), the new 7,000-square-meter (75,347-square-foot) site is slated to manufacture thorium-228, a precursor of lead-212, for radioligand therapies around the globe, Orano Med said Thursday.
Lead-212-targeted alpha therapies wed the ability of biologic molecules to target cancer cells with the cell-killing prowess of alpha emissions from the eponymous radioisotope, according to the company. More broadly, radiopharmaceuticals like those Orano Med is developing are guided radioactive drugs that can help diagnose diseases in smaller quantities and treat cancer and other conditions in higher amounts.
Despite the promise of radiopharmaceuticals, development of the nuclear medicines has often stumbled on issues around industrial-scale production, Orano Med said.
ATEF, which should be open for business in 2027, is expected to boost current capacity at Orano Med’s Maurice Tubiana Laboratory—which extracts lead-212—tenfold. The project is also expected to create around 70 new jobs, plus 100 indirect employment opportunities.
For now, the new facility will help Orano Med secure enough supply for clinical trials and commercial launches of its first prospective treatments. Within the next decade, the company figures the plant will enable the production of 100,000 radiopharmaceutical doses per year.
As part of the country’s France 2030 program, Orano Med’s ATEF site is in line to receive 22 million euros ($23 million) from the French government, the company added in its release.
Plans for ATEF come a little more than five months after Orano Med blueprinted a separate radiopharma production plant in Brownsburg, Indiana, near Indianapolis. That site, which will be known as Orano Med’s Alpha Therapy Laboratory (ATLab), will help churn out lead-212-based radioligand therapies and cover 30,000 square feet of floor space, the company said earlier this year. Orano Med plans to create 25 new jobs at the Indiana facility.
More recently, Sanofi laid out 300 million euros ($326 million) to embark upon a new France-based radioligand venture with Orano Med, of which the Big Pharma will own a 16% equity stake. Sanofi’s investment announcement came after the company in September agreed to pay Orano Med and its partner RadioMedix 100 million euros upfront and up to 220 million euros in sales milestones for the rights to a phase 2 targeted alpha therapy known as AlphaMedix.
Orano Med’s focus on alpha-emitting lead-212-based radiotherapies differs from other therapies in the field, such as Novartis’ marketed products Pluvicto and Lutathera, which leverage beta-emitting isotopes.
Novartis is among the many other companies besides Orano Med that have charted major radiopharma moves in 2024.
Late last month, CDMO Nucleus RadioPharma unveiled expansions at sites in Mesa, Arizona, and Springhouse, Pennsylvania, designed to equip each facility with research, development and production capabilities “under one roof.”
Around the same time, Australia’s Telix Pharmaceuticals revealed a new subsidiary, Rhine Pharma, that was formed to expand access to radiopharmaceuticals for cancer treatment and imaging alike. Rhine plans to leverage the isotopes technetium-99m and rhenium-188 for imaging and therapeutic uses, respectively.
Meanwhile, Novartis in September said it would invest more than $200 million to bolster its radiotherapy infrastructure with a new facility and the expansion of an existing site. The Swiss pharma’s third radioligand therapy manufacturing site in the U.S. will be located in Carlsbad, California, joining facilities in Millburn, New Jersey, and Indianapolis, with the latter campus also slated to receive a new radioactive isotope production plant.