As­traZeneca views $2B+ Fu­sion buy­out as ‘start­ing point’ for bet­ter ra­dio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, com­bos

As the fifth ma­jor phar­ma play­er to stake a claim in ra­dio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, As­traZeneca sees big po­ten­tial in im­prov­ing on cur­rent op­tions and ex­plor­ing com­bi­na­tion can­cer ther­a­pies through its $2 bil­lion ac­qui­si­tion of Fu­sion Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Fu­sion’s lead pro­gram, a po­ten­tial prostate can­cer ther­a­py, is ex­pect­ed to en­ter piv­otal tri­als in the next year or two, ac­cord­ing to Su­san Gal­braith, As­traZeneca’s head of on­col­o­gy R&D. But the deal was al­so done with a broad­er am­bi­tion to tap in­to what she sees as an “ex­cit­ing modal­i­ty op­por­tu­ni­ty for can­cer ther­a­py,” par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the man­u­fac­tur­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ty the new sub­sidiary brings. It’s al­so a bet on the spe­cif­ic type of ra­dioiso­topes that Fu­sion works with.

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