Algeta ASA
ALGETA:NO
was founded in 1997 by Roy H. Larsen and Øyvind S. Bruland in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

as a private

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...

and

pharmaceutical company The pharmaceutical industry discovers, develops, produces, and markets drugs or pharmaceutical drugs for use as medications to be administered to patients (or self-administered), with the aim to cure them, vaccinate them, or alleviate sympt ...

. The company’s research and development focus lies in the field of alpha-particle emitting

radiopharmaceuticals Radiopharmaceuticals, or medicinal radiocompounds, are a group of pharmaceutical drugs containing radioactive isotopes. Radiopharmaceuticals can be used as diagnostic and therapeutic agents. Radiopharmaceuticals emit radiation themselves, which is ...

. The lead product of the company, Xofigo is the first marketed alpha-particle emitting radiopharmaceutics for cancer treatment.

Early fund raising

Algeta raised its series A financing round in 2005 with a total amount of €23 million. The financing round was led by new investors HealthCap, Advent Venture and SR One.

Public offering

In March 2007, the company went public and traded in the

Oslo Stock Exchange Oslo Stock Exchange ( no, Oslo Børs) (OSE: OSLO) is a stock exchange within the Nordic countries and offers Norway’s only regulated markets for securities trading today. The stock exchange offers a full product range including equities, deriv ...

under the ticker symbol ''ALGETA'' and raised $41 million.

Xofigo

Algeta’s lead product Xofigo (radium Ra 223 dichloride,

radium-223 Radium-223 (223Ra, Ra-223) is an isotope of radium with an 11.4-day half-life. It was discovered in 1905 by T. Godlewski, a Polish chemist from Kraków, and was historically known as actinium X (AcX). Radium-223 dichloride is an alpha particle- ...

, previously called Alpharadin) is a radiotherapeutic drug which is supplied as injectable sterile solution. The active ingredient alpha particle emitting isotope radium-223 mimics

calcium Calcium is a chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar t ...

and forms complexes with

hydroxyapatite Hydroxyapatite, also called hydroxylapatite (HA), is a naturally occurring mineral form of calcium apatite with the formula Ca5(PO4)3(OH), but it is usually written Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2 to denote that the crystal unit cell comprises two entities ...

at areas where increased bone turnover takes place, such as cancer bone metastasis. The product received U.S.

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food ...

(FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) approval in May 2013 and November 2013, respectively, to treat castration-resistant

prostate cancer Prostate cancer is cancer of the prostate. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancerous tumor worldwide and is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related mortality among men. The prostate is a gland in the male reproductive system that su ...

, symptomatic bone metastases and unknown visceral metastatic disease. The FDA approval was based on a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled phase III

clinical trial Clinical trials are prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human subject research, human participants designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel v ...

of 809 patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer and symptomatic bone metastases. The trial was designed to measure

overall survival Survival rate is a part of survival analysis. It is the proportion of people in a study or treatment group still alive at a given period of time after diagnosis. It is a method of describing prognosis in certain disease conditions, and can be us ...

. Interim analysis revealed 14 months median overall survival in the Xofigo group as compared to 11.2 months in the placebo group. The data were later confirmed by updated exploratory analysis showing Xofigo improved overall survival.

Algeta Bayer deals

In September 2009, Algeta and

Bayer AG Bayer AG (, commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer's areas of business include pharmaceutica ...

anchored a development and commercialization deal for Xofigo with the total deal size of $800 million. In December 2013, Bayer offered a full

acquisition Acquisition may refer to: * Takeover, the purchase of one company by another * Mergers and acquisitions, transactions in which the ownership of companies or their operating units are transferred or consolidated with other entities * Procurement, ...

of Algeta for $2.9 billion. The largest shareholder HealthCap pre-approved the deal which was completed in March 2014.

References

{{Authority control Pharmaceutical companies of Norway Pharmaceutical companies established in 1997 Biotechnology companies of Norway Biotechnology companies established in 1997 1997 establishments in Norway