Novartis bet $6B on the idea — now Versant, venBio have $45M to birth a platform play for radiopharmaceuticals

Back in 2017, in the wake of back-to-back setbacks and a reorganization, a struggling little biotech named Endocyte completed a $12 million licensing deal that would ultimately put it on a path toward a $2.1 billion buyout.

As it turned out, Versant Ventures was also eyeing that very same drug out of Germany: PSMA-617, a radioligand therapeutic for castration-resistant prostate cancer.