There are companies that tiptoe into the public markets, and then there is Aktis Oncology walking in like it knows exactly why it is there. January 2026 opens with Aktis becoming the first biotech IPO of the year, raising $318M gross on an upsized offering priced at the top of the range, with the greenshoe pushing total proceeds to roughly $365M. Boston-built, Durham-powered, and incubated inside MPM BioImpact, this is the kind of entrance that forces anyone tracking startup news to stop scrolling and recalibrate.
Aktis Oncology is not chasing novelty. It is chasing a stubborn truth in oncology. Solid tumors dominate patient populations, yet radiopharmaceuticals have spent years confined to narrow clinical corridors. Antibodies get bulky. Peptides move fast and leave early. Aktis works smaller, faster, cleaner. Its miniprotein radioconjugate platform is engineered to penetrate tumors, retain long enough to matter, and clear healthy tissue without collateral damage. Alpha particles do the talking here. Actinium-225 does not negotiate.
The company was operationally launched around 2020, co-founded by Brian Goodman, PhD, and built under the leadership of Matthew Roden, PhD, CEO. Roden brings a rare combination of immunology training, Wall Street pattern recognition, and Bristol Myers Squibb deal discipline. He is joined by Kyle Kuvalanka as CFO, Ákos Czibere, MD, PhD as CMO, Paul L. Feldman, PhD as CSO, and Shulamit Ron-Bigger, PhD as COO. The board is chaired by Todd Foley, MBA, whose MPM BioImpact imprint signals a company engineered, not improvised.
The lead program, [²²⁵Ac]Ac-AKY-1189, targets Nectin-4 in urothelial cancer and other solid tumors and is now in Phase 1b. A second program, [²²⁵Ac]Ac-AKY-2519, targets B7-H3 and is IND-enabling with a filing planned for 2026. The platform is isotope-agnostic and imaging-guided, built for a see-then-treat model that respects both biology and capital efficiency. This is not about louder signals. It is about cleaner ones, which is why sophisticated investors tracking startup news have been paying attention.
That attention showed up in September 2024 with a $175M Series B led by RA Capital Management, joined by Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, and Merck via MRL Ventures Fund. It showed up again in January, when public markets followed through. Today, 76 full-time employees across Boston and Durham are operating with runway expected into 2028 and expectations that come with being first out of the gate in a new year.
Aktis is hiring, building, and moving with intent. If alpha radiopharmaceuticals are about to earn a larger role in solid tumor care, Aktis is positioning itself as required reading in startup news, not optional background noise.
