Mayo Clinic Radiopharmaceutical Venture Awarded State Grants

Get our free mobile app

Rochester, MN (KROC-AM News) -  A health-tech firm created through a partnership between Mayo Clinic and a California venture capital firm has been awarded $720,000 state grants o establish a laboratory/manufacturing facility and office in downtown Rochester.

Nucleus RadioPharma today announced it would be moving into Two Discovery Square. The plan calls for a 6500-square-foot laboratory and manufacturing facility, with an additional 3500 square feet of office space.

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development announced the state grants today. $500,000, from the state's Jobs Creation Fund, and the other $220,000 will be appropriated from the Minnesota Investment Fund.

DEED estimates the overall price tag for the project will be about $5 million. The state agency says the new facility is expected to create 28 jobs within the first two years with an average wage of nearly $63 per hour.

When it announced the joint project with Eclipse Ventures, Mayo Clinic indicated Nucleus Radiopharma was receiving $6 million in seed funding from both organizations. The firm was created "to ensure cancer patients can access potentially life-saving radiopharmaceuticals by developing technologies to modernize the clinical development, manufacturing, and supply chain of these promising new therapies."

Mayo Clinic stated that radiopharmaceuticals, which are medicines containing a small amount of radioactive material, are poised to become a core method of cancer diagnosis, staging, and treatment. Mayo also indicated their use has been hampered by manufacturing and supply chain issues.