Biotech company Orano Med, a subsidiary of Orano Group, a pioneer in the development of targeted alpha therapies for cancer treatment, opened its first ATLab (Alpha Therapy Laboratory) in Brownsburg near Indianapolis. It’s the world's first industrial-scale pharmaceutical facility dedicated to producing radioligand therapies.
The 30,000-square-foot facility is an investment of $20 million and will create 25 direct jobs. It will focus on producing Orano Med’s lead-212 therapies and their distribution in North America. Orano Med’s Targeted Alpha Therapy (TAT) combines the natural ability of biological molecules to target cancer cells with the short-range cell-killing capabilities of lead-212 generated alpha emissions.
Orano Med selected the location near Indianapolis for its proximity to major national and international distribution networks, with the second-largest FedEx hub ensuring reliable transport of radiopharmaceutical products, and its high concentration of pharmaceutical companies and skilled workforce.
Radioligand therapy, also called radionuclide or radiopharmaceutical therapy, is a targeted form of cancer treatment that delivers radiation directly to cancer cells, limiting damage to the surrounding healthy tissue. But the radioactive component’s extremely fast decay time makes it complicated to manufacture, package, and ship it. In essence, the treatment has to reach patients in a matter of days.
As a result, the development of radiopharmaceuticals has long been hampered by the difficulty of manufacturing and distributing them on an industrial scale. ATLab Indianapolis is a major step toward making these new treatments available to cancer patients with high unmet needs in North America.
In 2023, Orano Med started construction on a similar facility at Valenciennes in France to serve the European market. Combined with ATLab Indianapolis, this will enable Orano Med to manufacture 10,000 doses a year worldwide as of 2025, with the aim of producing ten times that number by the end of the decade.
The construction of ATLabs is envisaged to meet patients' needs worldwide. "We are convinced that lead-212 radioligand therapies will soon become an essential tool in the fight against cancer,” said Julien Dodet, CEO of Orano Med. “Having obtained, together with our partner RadioMedix, Breakthrough Therapy Designation (BTD) from the FDA for our most advanced drug AlphaMedix, the inauguration of ATLab Indianapolis represents another major step forward in the development, production, and distribution of these new treatments on a large scale.”
"The ATLab in Indianapolis is a very important step in the development of the Orano medical activities in the U.S.,” said Guillaume Dureau, Senior Executive Vice-President Projects & Innovation R&D and Nuclear Medicine for the Orano Group. “Coupled with the lead-212 production capacity of our research unit in Plano, Texas – the Domestic Distribution & Purification Unit – this new industrial site will enable us to serve North American patients requiring targeted lead-212 radiotherapy treatments."
Orano Med is developing a portfolio of treatments combining 212Pb with a range of targeting vectors. Orano Med has 212Pb production facilities, laboratories and R&D centers in France and the United States.
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