Alpha-9 Oncology has raised a $175 million series C round to bankroll its clinical-stage radiopharmaceutical drugs, although the exact details of the biotech’s pipeline remain hazy for now.
The Canadian company said it had already established a “robust clinical pipeline of radiopharmaceuticals,” and today’s fundraise would advance these therapies through clinical studies “across multiple tumors with high unmet patient need.”
Neither the release nor Alpha-9’s website go into detail about the exact contents of Alpha-9’s pipeline, although the company did announce in May that it had dosed the first patient in a phase 1 study of a radiodiagnostic targeting melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) for the imaging of locally advanced or metastatic melanoma. The idea is that this imaging agent will help identify patients who can then receive a MC1R therapy that the biotech is also working on, the company said at the time.
Fierce Biotech has asked Alpha-9 for more details about its pipeline but did not receive a reply by time of publication.
The latest financing follows a $11 million series A in 2021 and a $75 million series B the following year. Today’s series C was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Ascenta Capital and featured new investors General Catalyst, a16z Bio + Health, RA Capital Management, Janus Henderson Investors, Delos Capital, Digitalis Ventures, Lumira Ventures and a healthcare fund managed by the investment firm abrdn.
Alpha-9’s previous backers Frazier Life Sciences, Longitude Capital, Nextech Invest, BVF Partners and Samsara BioCapital returned for today’s raise.
Operating out of facilities in Vancouver, Alpha-9 touts its “differentiated toolbox of binders, linkers, chelators and radioisotopes” as setting apart its approach to radiopharma development.
"We have been following this space for a long time,” said Ascenta Capital Managing Partner Evan Rachlin, M.D., who is joining the biotech’s board as part of the financing. “What differentiated Alpha-9 was its effective approach to molecule design as well as its thoughtful strategy on infrastructure expansion.”
The radiopharma space saw a frenzy of dealmaking in late 2023 and early 2024, with Novartis’ $1 billion buyout of Mariana Oncology in May a notable highlight.