$8 Billion Deal: Curium to Acquire Radiopharmaceutical Rival Lantheus

A mega-merger valued at $8 billion has been completed in the radiopharmaceutical sector.

According to biotech publication Fierce Biotech on the 3rd (local time), radiopharmaceutical company Curium has signed an agreement to acquire rival Lantheus for up to $8 billion.

Under the agreement, Curium will purchase all outstanding shares of Lantheus for $102.50 per share in cash. The deal also includes contingent value rights (CVRs) that provide for an additional payment of up to $12 per share based on the revenue performance through 2030 of Lantheus' prostate cancer and neurology businesses and its Definity echocardiography contrast agent business.

The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027 after approval by Lantheus shareholders and regulatory authorities. Once the acquisition is completed, Lantheus will become a private company.

In May, reports emerged that Lantheus was considering Curium's approximately $7 billion acquisition offer, and the agreement formalizes months of speculation about the deal.

The merger will combine Curium's global manufacturing network and theranostics (technology that enables simultaneous diagnosis and treatment) pipeline with Lantheus' U.S. radiodiagnostics business. The combined company will span the nuclear medicine supply chain, from production of radioisotopes used as active pharmaceutical ingredients to diagnostic imaging and targeted radionuclide therapy.

Curium, a private company owned by investment firm CapVest Partners, operates more than 80 manufacturing facilities worldwide and has more than 3,800 employees. It said that after the merger, it will serve patients in more than 70 countries across oncology, neurology and cardiology.

Lantheus has several established products, led by the prostate cancer positron emission tomography (PET) imaging agent Pylarify, the echocardiography contrast agent Definity and the beta-amyloid PET imaging agent Neuraceq for Alzheimer's disease diagnosis. Centered on these three products, the company recorded revenue of $377.30 million in the first quarter of 2026.

Meanwhile, Lantheus has recently encountered some setbacks in its pipeline. In June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rejected the marketing application for LNTH-2501, a neuroendocrine tumor imaging kit, because of an issue at a manufacturing facility operated by a partner. Last year, the company abandoned plans to seek FDA approval for a treatment for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer that it was co-developing with Eli Lilly after the therapy failed to improve overall survival (OS) in a phase 3 trial.