Starget Pharma Series A Raises USD 18 Million to Advance AI-Driven Radioligand Programs
Clinical-Stage Radiopharmaceutical Firm Pairs Financing With Louisiana Research Collaboration
Starget Pharma Inc., a clinical-stage radiopharmaceutical company with operations in the United States and Israel, has closed a USD 18 million Series A financing round, the company said. The Starget Pharma Series A proceeds are intended to accelerate the company's AI-enabled radioligand discovery pipeline, expand its U.S. operations, and fund continued clinical development of its lead therapeutic candidate. Alongside the financing, Starget Pharma announced a strategic collaboration with the Center for Molecular Imaging and Therapy (CMIT) in Shreveport, Louisiana, a subsidiary of the Biomedical Research Foundation (BRF) that provides services spanning radiopharmaceutical discovery, manufacturing, and clinical translation.
The press release did not disclose the identities of the lead investor or other participants in the round. The Starget Pharma financing is expected to support the company's clinical programs, its computational drug design infrastructure, and the buildout of its presence in the U.S. market. The CMIT collaboration, announced concurrently, gives Starget access to molecular imaging and therapy infrastructure that the company described as relevant to advancing radioligand candidates from preclinical evaluation through clinical testing and distribution. Financial terms of the CMIT partnership were not disclosed.
Pipeline and Lead Candidate
Starget Pharma's development efforts center on peptide-based radioligand therapy (RLT) for oncology. The company's lead candidate is DOTA-PTR-58, a peptide radioligand designed to target somatostatin receptor subtype 3 (SSTR-3), which is overexpressed across several tumor types. According to a prior company announcement, the compound entered a Phase 1b clinical trial with planned enrollment at MD Anderson Cancer Center and other sites. Indications under investigation include sarcomas, neuroendocrine tumors, melanoma, and liver cancer, according to a report from Drug Discovery World.
The SSTR-3 focus represents a differentiation from currently approved radioligand therapies. Novartis's Lutathera (lutetium Lu 177 dotatate), approved by the US FDA for gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, targets SSTR-2, as do most somatostatin-receptor-directed agents in clinical use. By pursuing SSTR-3, Starget Pharma is attempting to address a receptor subtype that the company considers underexploited therapeutically, potentially expanding the population of patients eligible for somatostatin-receptor-targeted radioligand therapy.
AI Radiopharmaceutical Discovery Platform
The company positions itself at the intersection of computational biology and radiopharmaceutical design. Its platform applies artificial intelligence and machine learning methods to multiple stages of radioligand development, including target identification and validation, peptide ligand optimization, and predictive modeling of biodistribution and dosimetry. The company has not published detailed technical descriptions of its AI architecture or training datasets. AI radiopharmaceutical discovery has attracted increasing attention across the sector as companies seek to compress development timelines and improve candidate selection in a modality that has gained commercial traction following the approvals of Lutathera and Novartis's Pluvicto (lutetium Lu 177 vipivotide tetraxetan) for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.
Academic Origins and Leadership
Starget Pharma's underlying science traces to academic research conducted at Tel Aviv University. Prof. Ilan Tsarfaty, a co-founder affiliated with the university's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, has published on molecular imaging and receptor biology relevant to the company's SSTR-3 targeting approach. Dr. Elinor Goshen, a nuclear medicine specialist, is also among the founding team. The company's formation follows a pattern common among Israeli biotech spinouts, in which intellectual property generated in university laboratories is commercialized through a startup entity. Tel Aviv University's technology transfer arm, Ramot at Tel Aviv University Ltd., typically manages such arrangements, though a specific licensing agreement between Ramot and Starget Pharma has not been publicly confirmed.