RefleXion Medical is partnering with biotechnology provider 3B Pharmaceuticals to expand the population of cancer patients who can be treated with its SCINTIX biology-guided radiotherapy system.

The system is the only dual-treatment modality radiotherapy platform for treating solid tumors of any stage, using the individual biology of each cancer to autonomously determine where and how much radiation to deliver, second by second. Providers inject a patient with fludeoxyglucose F18, which initiates emissions from cancer cells that the platform uses to create a map to autonomously target them. It also tracks all types of motion, including breathing, digestion, and unexpected patient movements.

In doing this, the platform makes radiotherapy a viable option for metastatic cases, which are often difficult to treat with this therapy due to movement and toxicity associated with irradiating more than one tumor in a single session.
Through an exclusive license agreement, RefleXion will develop and commercialize a specific 3BP molecule, RXM-4768, which targets fibroblast activation protein (FAP) found in nearly all solid tumor types, and use it to improve the precision of its SCINTIX biology-guided radiotherapy, and provide better outcomes and procedural workflows.

Together, the companies selected one FAP-targeting molecule from a large number that can be used as potential diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals. They then optimized it for delivery with RefleXion’s SCINTIX radiotherapy, allowing it and other molecules like it to direct external-beam radiotherapy to irradiate tumors in real time.

“This molecule has the potential to light up most solid tumor types in the body, thus demonstrating the power of radiopharmaceuticals by enabling SCINTIX therapy to reach patients with metastatic cancers that currently have dismal outcomes,” said Thorsten Melcher, chief business officer at RefleXion, in a statement.

Last month, Stanford Medicine Cancer Center used the company’s platform for the first time worldwide on a patient with lung cancer.

With RXM-4768, RefleXion will have worldwide, exclusive, and sublicensable rights to continue developing and then commercialize it for use with the SCINTIX platform.

The transaction includes upfront and annual license payments to 3BP, with additional payments and commercial royalties to be made upon the completion of certain regulatory and commercial milestones.

Financial details were not disclosed.

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