Aktis Oncology, a clinical-stage biotechnology company, has announced the successful closure of a $175m Series B financing round for advancing its radiopharmaceutical pipeline.

This oversubscribed and upsized funding aims to advance the company's pipeline of targeted alpha radiopharmaceuticals designed to treat a wide variety of solid tumours.

The round was led by RA Capital Management, with RTW Investments and Janus Henderson Investors as co-leaders.

The investment will support the development of Aktis Oncology's new radiopharmaceuticals, including a first-in-class Nectin-4-targeted miniprotein radioconjugate.

Aktis Oncology president and CEO Dr Matthew Roden said: “The overwhelming support from high-calibre investors underscores the progress we have made on our pipeline, platform, and supply chain capabilities, exemplified by the significant opportunity for AKY-1189, our first-in-class miniprotein alpha radioconjugate targeting Nectin-4 in development for several tumour types.

“With over $300m in cash, we are well-positioned to prosecute several opportunities to expand the benefit of this exciting modality into new patient populations.”

The financing attracted a select group of new investors, such as funds and accounts advised by Avidity Partners, T. Rowe Price Associates, and an undisclosed life sciences-focused investment fund.

All existing institutional investors participated, alongside strategic investors Eli Lilly and Company, Bristol Myers Squibb, and MRL Ventures Fund, the therapeutics-focused corporate venture fund of Merck.

With the new funding, RA Capital Management partner and managing director Andrew Levin will join the Aktis Oncology board of directors.

Additionally, Lauren Lee from RTW Investment and Vish Sridharan from Janus Henderson Investors will join as observers on the board.

In May this year, Eli Lilly signed a multi-target discovery collaboration agreement with Aktis Oncology to develop targets for radiopharmaceuticals discovered by the latter.