Northstar has potential to draw lots more talent to Beloit

BELOIT — Kevin Staton is an East Coaster at heart.

Born in Long Island, home to 8 million people in New York City, Staton had never even visited Chicago until 2023 when he visited that city and Milwaukee with some friends.

“Little did I know that a year later I’d be living in downtown Beloit,” said Staton, who is living at The Phoenix Building on the 400 block of East Grand Avenue.

Staton specifically came to work for Northstar Medical Radioisotopes to get in on the ground floor of developing technology that could radically change the treatment of cancer in the world.

On Thursday, about 150 people attended a ribbon-cutting of Northstar’s new contract development manufacturing building on its 55-acre campus off Gateway Boulevard. The visitors came from as far away as the Netherlands, Germany and Australia for tours of the 55,000-square-foot facility.

Among those attending was Diane Hendricks, chairman of Hendricks Holdings Company, which is the majority shareholder of Northstar. Hendricks was one of several who spoke briefly on Thursday. Hendricks has many, many investments, but she noted that this one is personal to her. She is a two-time cancer survivor and one of her daughters just finished a six-month radiation treatment for leukemia.

“We’re all going to face cancer at some point,” Hendricks told the crowd.

Northstar was launched in Madison in 2006 to create radioisotopes used to diagnose cancer and in 2014 broke ground on its campus in Beloit. In 2023, the company exited the diagnostic market and the Thursday ceremony was Northstar’s chance to show off its pivot into developing radioisotopes to be used in future cancer treatments.

For decades, doctors have almost exclusively used radiation and chemotherapy to kill cancer cells. Radioisotopes give doctors the ability to create smaller doses targeted specifically at cancer cells, lessening the massive side effects.

What is the potential of the new Northstar direction? Just since 2021, Northstar has struck deals to develop actinium-225 for clinical trials for 11 different companies, according to a run-through of the company’s press releases, and one, Clarity Pharmaceuticals, to produce copper-67.

It’s Staton’s job as senior business development director to grow that client list. He came to Northstar from Evergreen Theragnostics in New Jersey, a startup company developing radioisotopes for cancer treatments.

“Most of the projects we are working on here are small, early-stage. We can handle 25 to 30 of those in this building,” Staton said. “Some of them won’t progress. Others will and they’ll move into our larger suites while we work to find more trials.”

Right now, there are only two FDA-approved radiopharmaceutical treatments — Pluvicto and Locametz — to treat advanced prostate cancer by Novartis.

“Those two are helping so many people and making so much money for Novartis you are seeing a lot of investment not just in the drugs, but the infrastructure,” Staton said.

According to the World Nuclear Association, about 0.2% of cancer treatments in the developing world are radiopharmaceuticals.

“If that reaches even 10%, we would need several more buildings (to meet the demand),” Staton said.

Northstar employs about 350 people with about 260 of those working at the Beloit campus. Radiopharmaceutical advances on horizon.