A Chanhassen-based medical company has raised $52 million in its quest to treat an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Late last week, Alpheus Medical Inc. announced that it closed its Series B funding round. That followed a $16 million Series A raise in 2021 and a $14 million follow-on a year later. Alpheus Medical founder, CEO, and president Dr. Vijay Agarwal said the bulk of the money from the latest funding round will help support randomized controlled trials of the company’s novel treatment of glioblastoma, a deadly brain cancer arising from protective nervous system cells known as astrocytes.

Gliobastomas today are generally treated with a combination of surgery and chemotherapy – a treatment that may only extend a patient’s life by a matter of months, Agarwal said. He described glioblastoma as a “universally fatal disease.”

Alpheus, originally founded as CranioVation Inc. over a decade ago, has developed an alternative treatment that instead uses low-intensity ultrasound to target cancer cells. Patients first drink an existing drug known as 5-ALA, which accumulates in cancer cells and causes tumors to “fluoresce like Christmas trees,” Agarwal said. Then, a proprietary helmet-like device developed by Alpheus delivers ultrasound technology to target and destroy the cancer cells. “Ultrasound noninvasively activates those tumor cells to undergo cell death,” Agarwal explained. The company refers to the treatment as “sonodynamic therapy.”

5-ALA is already FDA approved for brain surgery, but the company’s combined treatment plan will still need regulators’ blessing. The company said the new approach has shown “promising early results” in two other studies of patients with both new and recurrent cases of glioblastoma. “Brain cancer has seen very few advances in technology over the last 100 years,” said Agarwal, a brain surgeon by training. “We are excited to extend survival.”

Fellow Minnesota-based med-tech startup HistoSonics Inc. has developed technology that also uses ultrasound to target tumors, though in a slightly different manner.

The upcoming randomized trial is set to take place in major academic health centers throughout the country, Agarwal noted.

Today, Alpheus employs about a dozen people, but Agarwal expects that figure to double over the year ahead.

A pair of California-based investment groups – HealthQuest Capital and Samsara BioCapital – led the Series B round. Agarwal said he’s managed to line up the “dream team of health care investment.” Other investors included the American Cancer Society, the National Brain Tumor Society, and patient advocacy group the Sontag Foundation.