SpectronRx seeing continued growth in radiopharmaceutical production
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe field of nuclear medicine is revolutionizing cancer treatment and growing rapidly in Indiana.
SpectronRx, a contract manufacturer, invited Inside INdiana Business into one of its facilities. The company has grown from a staff of six in 2019 to 175 at its Indianapolis operation.
“Radiation gets a bad name, but really it’s all around the world—everywhere we are, everything we do,” SpectronRx CEO John Zehner said. “Radioactivity, when you put it in medicine, has some distinct advantages.”
Using radiation to fight cancer is nothing new. Traditionally, a beam passes through the body, which can damage healthy tissue near the cancer target. But radiopharmaceuticals are different because they go only to the tumor.
“You take radioactivity, attach it to something that will drag the radioactivity to the tumor, and the radioactivity is very precise. It’s right at that tumor. It only destroys the cells at that tumor or near that tumor,” Zehner said.
According to BioCrossroads, Indiana has become a nuclear medicine hub and is No. 1 in conventional pharmaceutical exports, positioning the state to continue its dominance in radiopharmaceuticals. Because radioactive materials degrade quickly, each dose must reach the patient in 3-5 days from the moment it’s made. Indiana’s FedEx hub, the second largest in the world, is a major advantage.
“We’re working with a lot of therapies, and that’s what’s really big in Indiana right now. There’s just tons of therapies,” Zehner said. “The entire field has been exploding. There’s been several billion dollar deals that have been advertised…many of those deals were our customers. So my joke is, I get pictures of a lot of boats now that people own that they didn’t own before.”
As the industry grows, many of the medicines—only charged molecules–can’t be seen by the naked eye. SpectronRx says dozens of its drugs are nearing approval, and the company has inked five new partnerships over the last three months.
“We work with atoms…everything we look [at] here is just so small, it’d be almost impossible to see on how it works,” Zehner said. “These drugs, we’ve been working on them a long time and they’re finally going to be offered widespread…we’re doing 15 to 20, 30 patients [in clinical trials.]. Now we can take it out to thousands of patients and really help people extend their lives.”
In October, the company announced it had executed a binding agreement with a Belgian company to manufacture a promising cancer therapy for patients in Europe.
The agreement advances a deal struck last year to establish SpectronRx’s first European radiolabeling facility. SpectronRx will provide equipment and procedures, while the Belgian Nuclear Research Center will provide researchers and lab technicians to meet manufacturing needs. The Belgian Nuclear Research Center is one of the largest research institutions in the European country, with more than 850 employees.
Indiana is home to more than a dozen nuclear medicine companies, and Purdue University has the nation’s largest nuclear medicine pharmacy program.
It’s already a $6 billion industry in the U.S., and nuclear medicine is expected to more than triple in the next 7 years.
As the industry continues to grow, officials from Indiana’s life sciences and higher education sectors are working together to help build a talent pipeline in biopharmaceutical manufacturing.
Heartland BioWorks, the consortium that was designated as a regional technology and innovation hub by the federal Economic Development Administration just over a year ago, has established BioTrain, a training institute designed to prepare talent for entry-level biomanufacturing roles.
BioTrain will be located at a soon-to-be constructed facility at the 16 Tech Innovation District near downtown Indianapolis.