AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) has agreed to buy a Canadian company which has a promising new drug designed to treat prostate cancer, in a deal worth as much as $2.4 billion dollars U.S.
The London-listed drug giant said the deal for Fusion Pharmaceuticals would be a “major step forward” in Astra’s plan to help replace chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
The “next-generation radioconjugates” that Fusion is developing will help doctors target cancer cells more directly than in the past.
That will help minimize the damage to nearby healthy cells and can also enable the treatment of tumors that traditional methods cannot reach.
Fusion’s technology is based on a version of the chemical element actinium.
Called actinium-225, it can be used to produce alpha particles, which help to kill cancer cells by disrupting its DNA.
Unlike most other radiation therapy, alpha particles only travel short distances – up to three cells away – so can kill tumors much more selectively without causing as much damage to healthy cells.
But one of the downsides is that very little actinium-225 is produced in the world today.
According to Andrew Robertson, a scientist at the University of British Columbia, there is only enough of it to treat a few thousand patients every year.
AZN shares ditched 21 cents to $65.64.
