Ariceum Therapeutics, a biotech company developing radiopharmaceutical products for the diagnosis and treatment of certain hard-to-treat cancers, and UCB, a global biopharmaceutical company, entered into an exclusive, strategic research collaboration agreement to identify and develop novel systemic targeted radiopharmaceuticals for the treatment of solid tumors and immune-related diseases.

Under the terms of the research collaboration, UCB and Ariceum will utilize each other’s technology platforms to enable the discovery of peptide-radioisotope conjugates as potential therapeutics for immune-related diseases and cancer. Ariceum to gain access to UCB’s expertise to discover novel synthetic macrocyclic peptides using its mRNA-display technology platform, Extreme Diversity.

Meanwhile, UCB will benefit from Ariceum’s expertise in the field of radiochemistry and labelling technology to enhance its ability to explore how this technology might lead to the discovery of highly differentiated products for immune-related diseases. Both companies will have the opportunity to explore several targets under this research collaboration.

Manfred Rüdiger, CEO of Ariceum Therapeutics, said, “We are excited about this strategic collaboration between UCB and Ariceum which aims to broaden Ariceum’s pipeline with potentially several new programs at discovery stage. Through this partnership, Ariceum will have access to a unique library that will be used to screen against targets of interest for oncology for which current targeted approaches have failed, while working with UCB on enabling targeted systemic radiotherapy approaches in other areas of severe diseases.”

Dhaval Patel, chief scientific officer of UCB, said, “The collaboration with Ariceum further enhances our strategic drug discovery capabilities and provides UCB with the opportunity to learn and explore the potential of this modality in our drive to continuously innovate. We look forward to working with Ariceum’s scientists and are eager to leverage the technology platforms and disease expertise at each company.”