Ra­dioan­ti­body start­up led by prostate can­cer ex­perts rais­es $90M

Neil Ban­der’s lab de­vel­oped the first an­ti­bod­ies that tar­get PS­MA — a mark­er on prostate can­cer cells that would much lat­er be­come the tar­get for No­var­tis’ block­buster-hope­ful ra­di­oli­gand ther­a­py Plu­vic­to. Now, as the tar­get­ed ra­dio­ther­a­py field takes flight, Ban­der’s own biotech com­pa­ny hopes to de­vel­op a new treat­ment for prostate can­cer.

Con­ver­gent Ther­a­peu­tics, which was found­ed in late 2020 by Ban­der and CEO Philip Kantoff, who was pre­vi­ous­ly chair of Memo­r­i­al Sloan Ket­ter­ing’s De­part­ment of Med­i­cine, said Wednes­day that it raised a $90 mil­lion Se­ries A from Or­biMed, RA Cap­i­tal and In­vus. The biotech is de­vel­op­ing a ra­dioan­ti­body dubbed CONV01-α that us­es a rare iso­tope known as ac­tini­um and tar­gets PS­MA.

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