Japanese startup Alpha Fusion accelerates astatine-based drug discovery with Series B funding

Alpha Fusion, Inc., working on research outcomes from Osaka University and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) OPERA QiSS programme, has raised a total of ¥1.02 billion through a Series B funding round.

The round was led by SBI Investment Co., Ltd. and OSAKA University Venture Capital, with participation from several new investors. This funding will enable the startup to accelerate its research and development efforts, enhance its supply chain, and deliver Japan's cutting-edge cancer therapies to the global market as quickly as possible.

As a leader in the clinical development of Astatine-based therapeutics, Alpha Fusion is advancing its pipeline and building a highly efficient supply chain using cyclotrons in collaboration with partners across the globe. Targeted Alpha Therapy (TAT) is highly anticipated to become a foundational drug discovery platform in oncology, offering the potential to create numerous novel treatments.

In the past year, several major pharmaceutical companies in Europe and the US have acquired startups developing Actinium (Ac-225)-based radiopharmaceuticals, signaling a surge of interest in this field. Astatine (At-211) is garnering attention for its short half-life, which anticipates clinical safety, its halogen properties that allow it to be directly labeled into low-mid sized-molecule ligands, its ease of sourcing raw material, and the simplicity of its production using cyclotrons.