GE HealthCare and Mayo Clinic are establishing a new research collaboration to advance personalised approaches to radioligand therapy (RLT) for advanced prostate cancer patients.
RLT theranostics are a form of precision cancer treatment wherein a target molecule is combined with a therapeutic radioactive isotope. Administered intravenously, the drug class is designed to bind to specific proteins on cancer cells and deliver targeted radiation to destroy the tumour while minimising damage to healthy tissue.
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Under the pair-up, the two entities will initiate the Molecular Imaging Biomarker-Based End of Therapy Trial (MI-BET) study. Using GE HealthCare’s StarGuide SPECT/CT technology alongside MIM Software’s MIM LesionID Pro, the project aims to track how tumours are responding to treatment throughout therapy. MIM Software is a GE HealthCare company.
Integrating imaging data with clinical outcomes and blood-based biomarkers and exploring these combined insights is anticipated to help inform more personalised treatment decisions and potentially support the development of predictive markers for patient response, the entities stated.
GE HealthCare and Mayo Clinic also foresee that predictive marker insights could enable researchers and clinicians to anticipate how patients will respond before or early in treatment, providing physicians with the ability to make adaptive treatment decisions.
The initiative is a tangible product of the entity’s 2023 Strategic Radiology Research Alliance that aimed to advance the experience of patients and clinicians in the practice of radiology and the delivery of novel therapies.
Sergio Calvo, global general manager of theranostics at GE HealthCare, commented: “Making theranostics truly adaptive and personalised requires strong clinical evidence and a deeper understanding of how patients respond to therapy.
“Through our collaboration with Mayo Clinic, we are exploring how imaging and data-driven insights can help inform more individualised treatment decisions, support the broader adoption of these approaches and contribute to the continued growth of precision care in oncology.”
More broadly, the study could also facilitate expanding access to advanced theranostic care to benefit a broader range of patients.
“Theranostics, and studies such as MI-BET, give us an important opportunity to rethink how and when we treat cancer,” said Dr Geoffrey Johnson, chair of the radiopharmaceutical trial team at Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“By evaluating response earlier in their treatment, we can generate data to drive approaches that could help reduce unnecessary therapy while expanding access to care for wider populations,” Johnson continued.
Novartis pioneered RLTs, with the Swiss pharma becoming the first company to gain US approval for an RLT with Lutathera (lutetium Lu 177 dotatate) in 2018.
Lutathera and Novartis’ second approved RLT, Pluvicto (lutetium Lu 177 vipivotide tetraxetan), are strong revenue drivers, with GlobalData analysis forecasting that the drugs will bring in $1.1bn and $5.1bn for the company in 2031, respectively.
