Interview With Sven Van Den Berghe CEO of Pantera

Welcome to the Founder Spotlight series, another episode with Sven Van den Berghe, CEO of  PanTera. The global shortage of actinium-225 (Ac-225) is a significant challenge for developing targeted cancer therapies. 

Currently, the global supply of Ac-225 is estimated at only 3 Curies per year, which is inadequate for the increasing number of clinical trials and therapeutic applications. PanTera was founded in 2022 with the goal of enabling large-scale production of Ac-225. The innovative production methods being developed by PanTera are expected to significantly enhance the availability of Ac-225, with initial products anticipated to be on the market by 2028-2029.

Let’s hear from Sven Van den Berghe about how PanTera became a significant player in the biopharmaceutical industry.

You’ve had an extensive career in business and healthcare. How did your background prepare you for leading PanTera?

A very important driver in my life is the creation of social value. Spending 25 years at a national laboratory like SCK CEN allowed me to get the necessary broad hands-on experience in nuclear science and technology and to develop my leadership skills in a relatively safe environment. It also allowed me to realise the importance of a commercial foundation for the medical radioisotope production sector. As it turned out my entrepreneurial spirit was larger than what I could fully develop at SCK CEN, the transition to the private sector was timed exactly right for me.

Could you elaborate on the key pillars of PanTera’s mission and what inspired you to focus on this space?

PanTera wants to bring a new hope to cancer patients by enabling the widespread use of radiopharmaceuticals for the targeted, personalised treatment of tumors, tailored to the patient’s needs. PanTera is convinced radiopharmaceuticals merit a prominent place in the toolbox of the oncologist as they offer a very promising way to effectively treat cancers with the lowest possible reduction of the quality of life of the patients.  The emerging field of radiotheranostics allows the biodistribution of a treatment agent inside a human to be followed from the outside and optimized for individual patients, reducing the non-beneficial impact of a treatment and verifying its effectiveness. Our mission is to help make such personalized nuclear medicine treatments available and affordable.

PanTera will generate societal value for Belgium, Europe and the rest of the world. Belgium has a highly advanced ecosystem for the production, processing, distribution and testing of radiopharmaceuticals.  PanTera wants to become an important player in this ecosystem by providing unique and difficult to manufacture radioisotopes for research and development, but likewise assure the isotopes are produced in quantities suitable for clinical applications throughout the world. Our mission is to continue making Belgium famous for beer, chocolates and medical radioisotopes.

PanTera is proud to be a nuclear company, making available the power of radioactive decay and ionizing radiation for the benefit of mankind through its medical applications. PanTera wishes to educate the public and contribute to an improved reputation for the nuclear industry by demonstrating how radioactivity can be safely handled and controlled and how radioactive products can be used to cure disease. Our mission is for hospitals, doctors, patients and their loved ones to feel comfortable with treatments with radioactivity.

PanTera’s mission is to bring “A Better Fight for Life” by providing the know-how, services, material and infrastructure needed to supply the rarest drugs in the world, thus supporting and enabling the application of nuclear radiation as a dependable source of new hope, as a precision tool for medicine which attacks the disease, not the patient.

Your platform merges technology with health, an area that is rapidly growing. How do you stay ahead of the trends to ensure that PanTera remains a leader in this space?

The current trend in radiopharma towards the use of alpha-emitters and particularly Actinium-225 is only just starting. As an isotope producer, we are less subjected to rapid changes in the trends, as long as the use of Actinium-225 maintains a central role in them. As we have seen from the recent investments of big pharma in the M&A deals with biotechs active in the field, the trend to implement Actinium-225 is clearly confirmed and our main objective is now to be ready in time for the commercialization of the drugs currently in trials. 

Your company emphasizes cutting-edge technology and science to optimize health. Could you elaborate on some of the most innovative tools or methods that Pantera Life uses to achieve this?

Production of medical radioisotopes was historically done through only 2 methods : irradiation in a nuclear reactor or irradiation in a proton accelerator. The materials which were irradiated were not radioactive and could be handled without special protection. In the technology developed by PanTera, for the first time a photon source will be used to produce a radioactive isotope through a photonuclear reaction. The base material itself is Radium-226, in itself a radioactive and difficult to manipulate target. PanTera has developed the infrastructure to create an intense and stable photon flux, place a radium target in the beam, radiochemically process the irradiated radium safely to extract the actinium and recycle the radium almost completely. 

The handling of radium requires a management of the radon emanations it produces, for which PanTera has a patented radon trap technology. Maintenance of the different components exposed to the high energy gamma photons and the minimization of the waste produced were crucial drivers in some of the technology choices. 

What challenges do you face in integrating advanced technologies and methodologies into traditional healthcare models?

Because PanTera does not produce a drug product but an ingredient for a pharmaceutical, we are not dealing directly with the national healthcare and reimbursement systems.  However, because the radioisotope is such a costly and difficult to produce ingredient, its cost can be higher than what pharma companies are used to paying for drug ingredients. This has required and continues to require education to make them realise the difference between classical and radio-pharmaceuticals. For the radioisotope production to be sustainable, it needs to be commercially viable and not depend on public funding.

You operate in a very competitive market that involves tech, wellness, and healthcare.What sets PanTera apart from other companies offering personalized health solutions?

PanTera is an enabler for radioligand therapy developers and pharma companies. It provides access to a vital ingredient for these pharmaceuticals and is therefore an indispensable part of the value and supply chain of radioligand therapy. Although competition exists also in the production of radioisotopes, PanTera is the only player which has direct control over all ingredients required to be a successful producer of Ac-225 : the starting material (radium-226 in large quantities and of high purity), the accelerator technology and – probably most important – the know-how and expertise of its founders which combines deep knowledge of alpha emitters and radium/radon management with accelerator-based and reactor-based radioisotope production.

Looking forward, what are the next big milestones for Pantera? How do you envision the company evolving over the next 5 to 10 years?

With our funding now secured, PanTera will focus on execution for the next 4 years, both in terms of delivering Ac-225 to the market from our Early Supply as for the elaboration of the Commercial Supply production centre. The former includes a reliable weekly supply from Q2/2025 onward and the latter implies construction of the facilities, process components and hot cells, but also development of the organization capable of launching the full-scale GMP production by 2029.

With health becoming a global priority post-pandemic, how has Pantera adapted its solutions to address the challenges that have arisen in this new era?

PanTera is a post-Covid company, so we have no “before” to compare to. Certainly, the availability of remote meeting capabilities has massively increased communication possibilities in long distance collaborations. One of our main engineering subcontractors is in the US and we have worked together for more than a year without a single face-to-face meeting. Although it is not always the case, this was an example where this way of working, impossible before the pandemic, worked out very well.

How do you foster a company culture that promotes high performance and well-being internally among your team?

Transparency and trust. Our motto is “assume good intent” and we live by it. 

What’s the most valuable leadership lesson you’ve learned throughout your career, and how has that shaped the way you approach running Pantera?

My greatest inspiration comes from the works of Steven Covey, in particular the Speed of Trust. Adhering to the principles set out in this book is extremely hard as many of them are seen as weak or poor management, but in the end they offer a path to true leadership, especially when combined with the insights of the “Good to Great” series of Jim Collins and the Simon Sinek jewels.