Garching-based radiopharmaceutical company ITM SE announces a €255 million investment round with plans to advance its radiopharmaceutical pipeline and expand radioisotope production capacity. Athos joins as a new investor.

ITM Isotope Technologies Munich SE (ITM) today announced one of the largest private investment rounds to date in European biotechnology, amounting to €255 million, led by Temasek and with participation from BlackRock Alternatives, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Nextech, Athos and Carbyne. The round included mainly primary capital as well as a minority transaction of so-called secondary shares. After many previous financing rounds of already impressive size, this time the Strüngmann brothers are also getting on board via Athos.

The primary net proceeds to the company will support the continued development of ITM's broad oncology pipeline of targeted radionuclide therapies (TRTs) and will help prepare for commercialization for pipeline candidate ITM-11 (n.c.a. 177Lu-edotreotide) in gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs), which is in the final stages of Phase III clinical development. In addition, the company will expand its manufacturing capacity and infrastructure for n.c.a. 177Lu, scale GMP manufacturing for 225Ac, and expand overall drug manufacturing capacity.

In the pipeline at ITM, the drug candidate ITM-11 is in focus: it is currently being investigated in two Phase III clinical trials for GEP-NETs. In addition, there is ITM-31 (Lu-177-labeled 6A10 Fab fragments), which has entered clinical trials for glioblastoma.

Prior to the current round of financing, the company had already embarked on expanding its production capacity by building a second state-of-the-art production facility in Germany, which will enable large-scale production of several radioisotopes and radiotherapies and is expected to open soon.

"ITM is a leading radiopharmaceutical company with an advanced proprietary pipeline and has established itself as the major radioisotope supplier globally. This financing supports our objective to serve a broad patient population by ensuring a consistent supply of radionuclides and radiopharmaceuticals to meet the growing demand of medical professionals and our partners across the pharmaceutical, healthcare and research sectors globally,” commented Udo J. Vetter, a member of the owner family of Vetter Pharma Fertigung GmbH & Co. KG, formerly a private investor in ITM and now Chairman of the Supervisory Board of ITM SE.

On June 12, ITM will open the world's largest production site for lutetium-177 for cancer therapy in the Neufahrn industrial park near Freising, Germany, with workplaces for about 200 employees.