Full-Life Technologies, a year-old Brussels-Shanghai radiotherapeutics company, will acquire New Jersey’s Focus-X Therapeutics for up to $245 million.

Using its proprietary peptide engineering technology. Focus-X has built a portfolio of eight radiopharmaceuticals targeting various cancers.

Its lead assets are a prostate specific membrane antigen (PMSA)-targeted peptide for advanced prostate cancer and a neurotensin receptor type 1 (NTSR1)-targeted peptide for pancreatic cancer. Focus-X shareholders will receive an upfront payment, up to $245 million in milestones plus royalties on sales.

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Founded in 2020, Focus-X has developed a proprietary engineering platform to develop peptide radioligands that deliver alpha or beta emitters to break down cancer cell DNA. The platform enables high-quality optimization of peptide radioligand vectors for biodistribution, binding affinity and in vivo stability. The company focuses on validated targets and new mechanisms.

“The Focus-X acquisition perfectly leverages Full-Life’s radiotechnology and development platform by adding two development ready compounds, including a lead with initial human data, a robust pipeline and world class peptide discovery capabilities,” said Lanny Sun, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Full-Life.

Fa Liu, PhD, Focus-X’s Co-founder and CEO, said, “Full-Life’s integrated platforms will provide the manufacturing technology, logistics and clinical development expertise to accelerate development of our compounds as well as expand our discovery efforts. This world class radiopharmaceutical team has enormous potential to develop radiopharmaceutical therapeutics that impact patients worldwide.”

Full-Life Technologies is a Europe-China company that plans to own the entire chain for radiopharmaceutical R&D, production and commercialization. It plans to in-license promising radiopharmaceuticals that it will distribute through its own logistics network.

The half-life of at least one radiopharmaceutical is just under 10 days, requiring an efficient distribution network.

Earlier this year, Full-Life raised $35 million from investors that included China-based firms Chengwei Capital, Sequoia China, Yunion Healthcare Ventures, Junson Capital, CD Capital and Kunlun Capital.

This story was first published in ChinaBio Today on November 29, 2022