$1 million for radiopharma company

Clarity Pharmaceuticals is one of 15 lucky companies that this month received grant funding through Accelerating Commercialisation — a program which encourages businesses, entrepreneurs and researchers to commercialise novel products, processes and services.

The company has been awarded $1 million — the maximum amount of funding available — to commercialise its radiopharmaceutical for treating cancer, SARTATE. The grant will fund a definitive clinical trial of SARTATE, with all of the product manufacture and trial results also helping in the development of the product for childhood cancers.

Clarity licensed its ‘SAR’ technology from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and the University of Melbourne before developing SARTATE for preclinical testing in 2011–12. The company received grant support from Commercialisation Australia to develop a proof-of-concept clinical trial to test SARTATE in humans as a novel cancer diagnostic for neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) and successfully completed that trial in 2015.

The Accelerating Commercialisation grant will fund SARTATE’s development as a cancer therapy. Success in the NETs trial will demonstrate the commercial potential of SARTATE as a product and create opportunities for the platform SAR technology to be used more broadly for other cancers, such as neuroblastoma and prostate cancer.

“This funding will enable Clarity to commercialise our lead therapy asset by working with the most prominent scientists and research organisations in the field,” said Clarity CEO Dr Matthew Harris. “We are striving to treat cancer patients in a personalised way with cutting-edge technology.”

Accelerating Commercialisation is part of the Australian Government’s Entrepreneurs’ Programme. To view the full list of grant recipients for March 2016, click here.