Telix Pharmaceuticals has announced the spin-off of its wholly owned subsidiary Rhine Pharma to expand global access to new radiopharmaceuticals for cancer imaging and treatment.
Rhine Pharma has two generator-produced isotopes: technetium-99m (99mTc) and rhenium-188 (188Re).
Australia-based Telix plans to structure the radiopharmaceutical firm as an independent company.
The company was formed through a collaboration between Telix and Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD). The goal was to develop a PSMA-targeting small molecule that can be labelled with either 99mTc for SPECT imaging or 188Re for radioligand therapy.
This partnership produced a next-generation theranostic compound, RHN001. Rhine Pharma is now advancing RHN001 into a Phase 1/2a RHINO clinical study.
RHINO will assess the safety and efficacy of both 99mTc-RHN001 and 188Re-RHN001 in patients with advanced prostate cancer.
Both 99mTc and 188Re can be produced on-site using generators, providing a solution for areas with limited radiopharmaceutical manufacturing or dispersed populations.
99mTc allows for imaging with widely available SPECT scanners, while 188Re shows promise as a therapeutic isotope due to its beta emissions, which target tumour cells.
Additionally, its short half-life of 16.9 hours simplifies patient workflows in busy treatment centres with high demand and limited nuclear waste management capabilities.
Telix therapeutics CEO Richard Valeix said: “Rhine Pharma is an example of identifying an access-to-medicine challenge and then working to fix it.
“While radiopharmaceuticals can be a powerful way to image and treat cancer, manufacturing doses and getting them to patients can be complex and costly, particularly in emerging markets or geographically dispersed populations.
“Using generators for production could reduce costs and simplify the supply chain. This means the combination of 188Re and 99mTc has potential for addressing unmet needs in cancer treatment for more people, in more countries.”
Rhine Pharma collaborates with the Nuclear Medicine Research Infrastructure (NuMeRI) at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
Opened in May 2024, NuMeRI is dedicated to advancing nuclear medicine research in the region. The RHINO Trial has received ethics and regulatory approval in South Africa.
In February, Telix agreed to acquire IsoTherapeutics, a Texas-based speciality radiopharmaceutical development and bioconjugation firm.
The following month saw the Australian firm unveiling its plans to buy radioisotope production technology firm ARTMS.
