SciLifeLab DDD exit spin-off Akiram Therapeutics to start clinical trial

Akiram Therapeutics, a spin-off company based on SciLifeLab researcher Marika Nestor’s 2022 Drug Discovery and Development Platform (DDD) exit, has received approval from the Swedish Medical Products Agency to begin a Phase 1 clinical trial for its drug candidate, 177Lu-AKIR001.

This trial will assess the safety and tolerability of 177Lu-AKIR001, a targeted radioimmunotherapy aimed at treating aggressive, treatment-resistant cancers such as anaplastic thyroid cancer, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, and non-small cell lung cancer. It will take place at Karolinska University Hospital, with recruitment starting in fall 2024, funded by grants from foundations including the Sjöberg Foundation, the Erling Persson Foundation, and the Swedish Cancer Society.

“The start of the Phase 1 clinical trial is a significant milestone for Akiram and an important step forward in molecular radiation therapy,” says Marika Nestor, CEO and co-founder of Akiram Therapeutics. “We are excited to collaborate with Karolinska University Hospital and are confident in AKIR001’s potential to improve treatment outcomes for patients.”

Read the Akiram Therapeutics press release about the clinical trial for more information

Marika Nestor’s exit from the DDD platform

During the four-year project, Marika and her team were working closely together with the DDD platform. The platform helped with the selection and characterization of antibodies, stability analysis, epitope mapping, and cross-reactiveness testing, while Marika’s team could focus on cell studies, in vivo testing, and radioactive isotope selection. The DDD exit resulted in a new company called Akiram Therapeutics. We covered the 2022 exit in a news article.

“We already have a medical team at Karolinska Institutet, ready to treat patients when we are ready. The project has also received very positive feedback from the Swedish Medical Products Agency, bringing our drug candidate one big step closer to the clinic”, Marika Nestor said at the time, which proved to be true, at an impressive pace.

Then in January 2023, Akiram Therapeutics secured investments of 68 MSEK from Sciety Venture Partners and Linc AB, in a venture capital round led by Sciety. This led to a follow-up article where we talked to Marika and Akiram Therapeutics about this recent financing.

”Marika’s project represented an ideal case for the SciLifeLab DDD model. In short, that means that we get innovative ideas from academic researchers around Sweden and use our technical infrastructure and drug discovery knowledge to develop prototype drugs, while the academic research group continues to develop the biological understanding,” Per Arvidsson, the Director of Drug Discovery & Development Platform, said in an interview in 2023.