2 weeks Ago By Jeff Kiger
ROCHESTER — Nucleus RadioPharma, a start-up cancer drug maker currently building a $5 million facility in downtown Rochester, plans to expand its national footprint by constructing additional complexes in Arizona and Pennsylvania to ramp up its production capacity by 200%. Nucleus RadioPharma, co-founded by Mayo Clinic and the California-based venture capital firm Eclipse in September 2022, recently announced its plans to build a 53,000-square-foot facility in Mesa, Arizona, and a 48,000-square-foot one in Spring House, Pennsylvania. ADVERTISEMENT Building the new sites will reduce delivery times of the time-sensitive radiopharmaceutical drugs, which have a short half-life.
These centers place Nucleus RadioPharma within a four-hour drive of 60% of the U.S. population, according to the company.
These first-of-their-kind facilities will house research, development and commercial production capabilities under one roof. The Mesa site, like the Rochester one, will have easy access to Mayo Clinic patients and researchers working on clinical trials. It will also serve as a hub to ship drugs to Asia The Spring House complex, north of Philadelphia, will have access to the Fox Chase Cancer Center, which is an investor in Nucleus RadioPharma, as well as shipping to Europe.
"To reach their full potential as treatments for millions of patients with limited options, theranostic radiopharmaceuticals must be available close to those who need them," stated Nucleus CEO Charles Conroy in the announcement. "Our expansion will significantly improve patient access to these life-saving treatments and expedite clinical trials, potentially reducing time-to-market for new therapies by up to 30%." Conroy has previously explained that the drugs are “very intricate and time sensitive," so multiple production sites are a necessity for the company.
Construction has started on the Arizona and Pennsylvania sites. The goal is to have them open by late 2026. Meanwhile, Nucleus RadioPharma’s research and development lab is up and running on the second floor of Rochester’s Two Discovery Square complex at 415 Second Ave.
ADVERTISEMENT The lab is staffed by 15 team members with two more starting in November. Construction is still underway for Nucleus RadioPharma’s 7,000-square-feet of manufacturing on the first floor of Two Discovery Square, directly under the 5,000-square-foot R&D lab. The Rochester facility expects small batch dose production yet this year with full large-scale manufacturing to start late in the first quarter of 2025.
Nucleus RadioPharma, which hired Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Geoff Johnson as its chief scientific officer, expects to eventually grow to a total of 40 to 45 employees in Rochester. The science supporting radiopharmaceuticals is still relatively new and is only being used to treat prostate cancer today.
The drug aims to deliver radiation directly to targeted cancer cells with much less “collateral damage” than traditional cancer treatments. When asked how much the drug would cost, Conroy has previously estimated that each customized dose could cost in the tens of thousands of dollars. When the Rochester site is up and running, he expects 90% of Nucleus RadioPharma’s manufacturing will be for researchers using the drugs for clinical trials.
Overall, Conroy has described Nucleus RadioPharma’s current situation as a dog catching a car. The science is proven and now it is one of several companies trying to build a new type of drug industry from the ground up. "We're taking the biggest swing at this, bigger than anybody ever has, but we certainly want to help lots of different people get to the goal line.
There's been about $5 billion invested in this field in the last five years and there's 75 new companies that are working in this space that didn't exist five years ago,” he said in 2023. “This is really, really exciting. It's going to be something we look back at years from now and ‘Wow, what did we do before we had this?’ It's pretty neat.
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