US researchers receive NIH grants to advance radiopharmaceutical technology

Researchers and biotechnology companies are receiving significant federal funding to advance radiopharmaceutical technologies for cancer diagnosis and treatment.

At the Keck School of Medicine of USC, a team is developing a “plug-and-play” platform to simplify and accelerate the production of radiotracers used in positron emission tomography (PET) scans. Supported by a $2.6 million grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, the project aims to make PET imaging more accessible and affordable by overcoming the technical challenges of attaching radioactive substances to biological molecules.

Separately, Molecular Targeting Technologies (MTTI) has been awarded a $3.17 million, five-year grant from the National Cancer Institute. This funding will support the development of Lu-177-EBRGD, an investigational radiopharmaceutical designed to target non-small cell lung cancer. The program will focus on preclinical research, drug manufacturing, and regulatory preparation for clinical studies.