Jason Hurt, Founder & CEO of Theragnostic Insights

Julio Martinez-Clark (00:01.381)
Welcome back to another episode of the Global Trial Accelerators Podcast. Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Dr. Jason Hurt, MD, MBA, founder and CEO of Theragnostic Insights. After two decades in oncology drug development, Jason launched his consultancy in 2025 to accelerate next generation radio ligand therapies.

as former chief medical officer at Orano Medical, or Orano Med, he led breakthrough targeted alpha programs using lead 212 isotopes. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Including the landmark 212-PV-DOTAM-TE-TRAW for neuroendocrine tumors. Beyond the science, Jason mentors emerging researchers

Jason Hurt (00:43.47)
Yeah, that's perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

Jason Hurt (00:54.894)
Correct.

Julio Martinez-Clark (00:59.03)
And fun fact, still finds time for medical missions and golf. Jason, welcome to the show.

Jason Hurt (01:05.912)
Thank you, Julio. It's a pleasure to be here and good to connect with you again. Absolutely.

Julio Martinez-Clark (01:10.286)
Thank you, Jason, for being here. All right, so let's start with your journey, Jason. You have a fascinating story. You were an MD, practicing MD, seeing patients, and then you transitioned into the industry. You became a leader in drug development, all that. How did it all happen? Yeah.

Jason Hurt (01:22.84)
Yep.

Jason Hurt (01:31.928)
How did that happen? So I grew up in like a small middle-class family in Texas. My father was a carpenter. But I knew that I always wanted to be a doctor from the time I was eight years old. And so I grew up with working with my father. That wasn't always the best idea, but he and I are very much alike. So sometimes the personalities clash.

Julio Martinez-Clark (01:42.734)
really? Wow!

Julio Martinez-Clark (01:48.333)
Hmm.

Jason Hurt (02:01.55)
And I just always wanted to be a physician. So I went to medical school in Texas. And while I was in medical school, I couldn't really figure out what I wanted to do. I really wanted to do surgery. So I went into a couple of surgical options and I ended up doing gynecology. And so I was in doing that and I was a fellow at...

And gynecologic oncology is where I learned kind of the basics of cancer and cancer surgery and things like that, chemotherapy. I left fellowship after I had some health issues with my eyes and some other things. And if you have issues with your eyes, it's very difficult to operate.

Julio Martinez-Clark (02:39.651)
Yeah.

Julio Martinez-Clark (02:50.403)
I'm sure.

Jason Hurt (02:54.414)
So I ended up going into general practice and then decided about a year into it that I didn't want to do this anymore. And there was a number of signs that I'm glad 15, 16 years ago I saw. Most of the physicians were becoming hospital employees and things like that. Insurance was getting to be horrible then and it's even worse now.

Julio Martinez-Clark (03:18.784)
Hmm, yeah.

Julio Martinez-Clark (03:24.662)
Yeah.

Jason Hurt (03:25.134)
I was in my early thirties and I had decided that if I was going to do anything with my career, I was really going to have to figure out what to do. And I decided that I was going to get into the drug development industry. And so I had a very nice CV from academics and hired somebody on Craigslist to write me a resume.

Julio Martinez-Clark (03:53.771)
Wow.

Jason Hurt (03:54.038)
I posted it on a job board and in about three months a recruiter called me from a CRO here in Cincinnati and that's what made it. So we moved from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati and I've been here ever since. So I was really...

Julio Martinez-Clark (04:02.187)
Okay.

Julio Martinez-Clark (04:06.38)
Hmm.

Jason Hurt (04:20.302)
Can you hear me? Oh, so there was just a little cut up there. So I was really glad to get into the industry. I learned in my four years at the CRO, I learned a ton about clinical drug development. And so from there, I went to a couple of smaller biotechs. And in 2019, I was looking for another job because the company I was at at the time was looking to commercialize. they really didn't have a need, a real need for...

Julio Martinez-Clark (04:21.473)
Yes.

No worries.

Jason Hurt (04:50.232)
drug developer, right? It was mostly commercial. And so I was recruited by a company called AronoMed that was based in Dallas or outside of Dallas. And it was there for about four and a half, five years and really got into the radiopharmaceutical space after that. During the same time I did my MBA, because I really wanted a little more, you know, business aspect of it from a

Julio Martinez-Clark (05:06.474)
Hmm.

Jason Hurt (05:17.166)
you know, from a business point of view, because physicians, you know, I'm sure you know, we don't have any business training. And so it was nice to go back to school and my kids say, you know, you are a professional student, all you've done is go to school. How did you do?

Julio Martinez-Clark (05:25.024)
Yeah.

Julio Martinez-Clark (05:32.834)
No!

Jason Hurt (05:35.97)
How did you do that? And so it was very easy. I mean, it wasn't easy. It was the same thing that I've always done. I always had two or three jobs, so it was not any different. And then in March of this past year, a colleague of mine reached out to me and said, hey, I'm changing jobs. Let's make a partnership together. And we kind of strung together the idea of doing

Julio Martinez-Clark (06:03.329)
Hmm

Jason Hurt (06:05.454)
consulting for clinical trials with radiopharmaceuticals. She had done quite a bit of industry work in radiopharmaceuticals and I thought it was the perfect idea. The other thing that she had brought up was this clinical trial set that we've talked about. And because we had been in the clinical trial space, we knew kind of the shortcomings of the academic and the hospital system.

clinical trial infrastructure, if you will, and the lack of the real expertise for radiopharmaceutical trials. So we launched that in March and we're looking to, we're currently trying to raise funds for them. As you know, it's a capital intensive investment.

Julio Martinez-Clark (06:38.752)
Mm-hmm.

Julio Martinez-Clark (06:54.677)
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you're working on two, we're gonna discuss the details later, but you're working in two areas, setting up that clinical trial site for radiopharmaceuticals, and you're also working on your consultancy practice or firm. Okay.

Jason Hurt (07:09.475)
Mm.

Jason Hurt (07:13.462)
Right, right, right. So the consultancy, they kind of both started at the same time. We went live in May. We started in March, went live in May. So that's doing well. So revenue is coming in. So that's not only good for me, but it's good for our company that we're recognized as somebody that can...

Julio Martinez-Clark (07:20.713)
Okay.

Julio Martinez-Clark (07:25.119)
Yes.

Jason Hurt (07:40.812)
that can really help out these smaller biotechs that don't have a lot of money but really need the expertise to get from the preclinical aspect into the clinic.

Julio Martinez-Clark (07:46.912)
Yeah.

Julio Martinez-Clark (07:51.282)
Excellent, all right. So let's talk about trends, Jason, before we get into the nitty-gritty details of what you guys are doing on setting up this trial site and your consultancy venture.

Jason Hurt (08:03.736)
Yep.

Julio Martinez-Clark (08:08.417)
Let's talk about what's happening in the industry. What's the bottleneck that I hear about? Why is it difficult to set up trial sites? Why is it there's more demand for research site than the actual offer? So let's talk about trends, what's happening?

Jason Hurt (08:31.47)
Yeah. So the radiopharmaceutical industry is quite interesting. And it reminds me of kind of the immunotherapy explosion in the early part of the decade, in 2013, sometime around there, with really just remarkable results from these products. And so when I got into it about six or seven years ago, Lutathera had just been approved.

for use in neuroendocrine tumor patients. That's really different than kind of the rest of the world. They were really way ahead of the US in terms of radioligand therapies for a number of reasons that we can get into later. But nevertheless, the US was behind and a lot of it had to do with training and the oncologists who were involved in it and who weren't necessarily involved in it.

Julio Martinez-Clark (09:15.965)
Hmm.

Julio Martinez-Clark (09:19.721)
Yeah.

Jason Hurt (09:31.104)
So a lot of things happened that we were just behind. so Lutathera was done a lot in Europe and elsewhere in the world. And so there was a lot of data from elsewhere in the world. And at the time, there was very few things that the nuclear medicine guys did in terms of clinical research. So there's a big difference between doing a

research project for a diagnostic compared to a therapeutic. Right. And so that just kind of led it all. It just exploded. in 20, the end of 23 and pretty much all of 24, there was billions of dollars going into the industry. Right. For mergers and acquisitions, CDMO development, logistics for supply chain.

Julio Martinez-Clark (10:05.309)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Hurt (10:30.99)
Because the logistics of this and the supply chain of these radio pharmaceuticals is crucial to the success of everybody, right? And so it stands to reason that that there needed to be a lot of capital in this to to be able to supply Whatever radioisotope necessary to get it to get it to patients when needed But again as we as we discussed before

The ultimate prize in drug development is FDA approval. FDA approval requires a lot of money and it requires a lot of data that is collected from clinical trials. And in the industry, there are clinical trial signs, there's about 22 or 23 or so that are called the...

that are graded by the SMMI as centers of excellence. But those are limited, right? And so if those sites are, they have all the patients, then there's other, and other people can't get there because they don't have any room there, then it warrants other sites that can tackle that. So our,

Julio Martinez-Clark (11:49.62)
Yeah.

Jason Hurt (11:54.562)
You know, our idea is to one of the bottlenecks again, as we talked about is the clinical trial size and the, the, the relationship between nuclear medicine physicians and the oncologists. Cause in the U S the oncologists are the gatekeepers of the, of the patient, right? You just don't go to a nuclear medicine site and say, Hey, I want to, I want to do this. Yeah. and so, and so, you know, we came up with this idea and we thought it was a pretty good one.

Julio Martinez-Clark (12:16.765)
Yeah.

Jason Hurt (12:24.366)
And so that's the bottleneck that we're hoping to open, right? So we can get these drugs studied quicker, get the data and get it submitted to the FDA for the, again, the ultimate prize of FDA approval.

Julio Martinez-Clark (12:40.594)
Yeah. All right, so why is it so difficult to set up a trial site for these type of therapies, Jason?

Jason Hurt (12:49.838)
Two reasons, two main reasons. One is the cathode investment. So for a specific radiologic clinical trial site or radiopharmaceutical clinical trial site, it's got to be set up to handle radiation, which means lead lining of the walls, shielding from the radiation from various isotopes. There's got to be specific age fact.

accommodations for the CT scanner and the PET scanner. You also have to have a very specialized workforce that is kind of lacking in the US. So radiopharmacists, radiochemists, nuclear medicine techs, nuclear medicine physicians, you know, not all physicians like to do clinical research, right?

Julio Martinez-Clark (13:31.303)
Yeah.

Jason Hurt (13:47.55)
And again, it's the capital investment of the imaging equipment. So for example, in a hospital system, they're sharing clinical development with radiopharmaceuticals with routine medical care. So the typical things that the radiology department does, CT scans, just, so there's always something going on. Our proposal is to have a standalone

unit with imaging capabilities.

Julio Martinez-Clark (14:21.958)
So most of the existing trial sites are at academic institutions. Is that a fact? Okay.

Jason Hurt (14:29.944)
Correct. Correct. most of them are typically oncology-based clinical trial sites, right? Not necessarily. So meaning that they do a plethora of clinical trials from a number of different molecules. And so they're very well set up for that. They're very used to doing that. It's just when you start doing these clinical trials in the US, some of the institutions have to catch up.

Julio Martinez-Clark (14:36.964)
oncology based.

Julio Martinez-Clark (15:00.74)
I see.

Jason Hurt (15:00.76)
and they're not always willing to pitch up.

Julio Martinez-Clark (15:04.285)
Alright, let's talk about cyclotrons. So you don't really need to set up your own production cyclotron setup. You can buy from a third party that has a cyclotron in the area.

Jason Hurt (15:13.302)
No, no, no, so that's, yeah.

Jason Hurt (15:20.492)
Yeah, yeah. So the way it is now, so a lot of academic centers, universities and things like that have the cyclotron that they can produce whatever, astatine, know, whatever radioisotope it is. That's not our goal. Our goal is to have the radiopharmaceutical either pre-made and sent to the site in time for dosing.

There are some generators, not necessarily cyclotrons, but generators that can make a radioisotope. But yeah, we're clinicians, right? So our expertise is not in running a cyclotron.

Julio Martinez-Clark (15:56.144)
Generator's okay.

Julio Martinez-Clark (16:11.997)
That requires another set of challenges and skills.

Jason Hurt (16:15.244)
Yeah, that's another, that's a totally other issue. So, and so this is kind of the thing with clinical drug development. So in oncology, you know, are used to doing these types of trials, know, cancer trials and things like that. What they're not necessarily used to doing is being a part of a radio pharmaceutical.

Julio Martinez-Clark (16:33.724)
I see, I see. Okay, interesting. So, well, you know that my focus has been on all US outside of the United States, first in human research, more specifically in Latin America. Do you see a space for Latin America to try to alleviate this bottleneck?

Jason Hurt (16:49.038)
and

Jason Hurt (16:54.754)
Yeah, yeah, I think so because just the sheer number of patients, right? So in the community, in these other countries, there may not be access to a top notch academic site, right? There may not be that type of access. So yeah, I believe in the community. If we can get these in closer,

into the community. Yes, absolutely. It meets that on that napple lead.

Julio Martinez-Clark (17:27.612)
Yes, we... Exactly, exactly. That's what we think we... I don't know if I told you when you and I first met, but we are sitting out by cyclotron in Colombia, at one of the leading institutions in the country, one of the leading hospitals in Latin America, and we're setting up a whole radiopharmaceutical and diagnostic program heavily focused on research.

to try to alleviate these bottleneck that we're discussing, hoping that by having a value proposition where we can execute these trials faster, easier, and cheaper in South America, we'll bring a lot of business to the country and to benefit patients.

Jason Hurt (17:56.579)
Yes.

Jason Hurt (18:15.426)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I think the push is going towards there, right? Because in clinical drug development, the prize or the data that you collect is gold, right? And so if you have more patients that you can collect more data from, that benefits everybody.

Julio Martinez-Clark (18:38.541)
Agree. Yeah. Yeah. Good. All right, Jason. So let's talk a little bit about your consultancy. What exciting project are you working on without disclosing confidential information? Yeah.

Jason Hurt (18:52.086)
Yeah, yeah, so I'm working with a couple of CROs and a couple of smaller biotechs right now. I can't really name, but what we provide is a lot of expertise outside of the typical clinical drug development. So there's a lot of issues with sites when you go to the sites in the US and things like that.

You know, a lot of people said that it's very similar to oncology clinical trials and it is, and that backbone is there, but it's not necessarily just oncology trials. know, there's some specific things for radiopharmaceuticals that you really have to know. So with our consultancy, can do, we do like interim chief medical officer for companies. We can do medical monitoring. We do specializations.

Julio Martinez-Clark (19:43.65)
Mmm. Mmm.

Jason Hurt (19:47.158)
We have a regulatory person. We also have a CMC consultant. essentially anything that goes with your clinical trial for radiopharmaceuticals, we could probably help out with.

Julio Martinez-Clark (20:02.34)
That's excellent. What about the CRO, now that you just mentioned CROs, is it also bottleneck in that space? Do we have enough CROs to, no?

Jason Hurt (20:12.608)
No, well, it may be, it may be because there's a number of CROs that are trying to get into the space now, right, and are looking for expertise and to help them to kind of break into that space because again, there's a lot of money going into regular pharmaceutical drug development, right? And so the CROs are really trying to get their hands on these types of things. I wouldn't say that it's necessarily a bottleneck.

but all this CROs go to have their clinical trial sites that they go to that they prefer. And we aim to be one of those.

Julio Martinez-Clark (20:52.619)
Of course, yeah. Beautiful, excellent. All right, Jason, we're getting close to the end of the show. Any final words of wisdom? Any final comments you want to make to the audience?

Jason Hurt (21:05.656)
Yeah, think the time is right for radiopharmaceuticals. There's a lot of smart people coming in from both sides of the bridge where we're on the preclinical and the chemistry and the physics and all of that stuff. And there's a lot of smart people coming in on the other side from the clinical drug development world. And we don't necessarily speak the same language, but we have to get to the same place.

It's exciting to see what's on the other side. And I hope they're just as excited to see what's on our side as we get closer and closer to FDA approval.

Julio Martinez-Clark (21:44.557)
Yeah. So Jason, before we conclude, something else has been bugging me a little bit. You mentioned something about some countries where they have a lead over the United States. Can you mention some of those countries? Why do they have a lead over the US?

Jason Hurt (22:01.442)
Yeah, yeah. So Germany is a big one. Australia is a big one and a lot of the companies, Japan and China is even making a move now. So there's a lot of interest outside the US and the rest of the world. And it's just one of those things that happen. And so we're trying to catch up with the workforce issue.

Julio Martinez-Clark (22:09.943)
Hmm.

Julio Martinez-Clark (22:15.169)
Wow.

Julio Martinez-Clark (22:27.064)
Hmm.

Jason Hurt (22:30.58)
and the expertise to get these things approved.

Julio Martinez-Clark (22:35.414)
Well, Germany, yes, makes sense. Japan, yeah, maybe, makes sense. But Australia, you never hear about much Australian innovation coming out of it. I mean, what's going on there?

Jason Hurt (22:46.902)
Right, one of the biggest radiopharmaceutical companies is Telix. I believe Clarity is there too, maybe Curium. for early clinical trials, they have a lot of benefits to get there, some monetary benefits and incentives to do them there. And so they've done them there. And it's really quite nice.

Julio Martinez-Clark (23:15.228)
yes, they have these tax rebates, I think it's called 43.5 % back of whatever you invest in a clinical trial. That's why a lot of startups, especially in biopharma and medical devices, spaces go there.

Jason Hurt (23:19.436)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Hurt (23:31.714)
Yes, absolutely, absolutely. That's one of the key things.

Julio Martinez-Clark (23:33.527)
Mmm.

Julio Martinez-Clark (23:37.472)
Excellent. All right.

Jason Hurt (23:37.496)
So, know, time is money, you're doing clinical drug development.

Julio Martinez-Clark (23:41.881)
Beautiful, beautiful. So you're validating what we're doing in South America Jason, for your information, we're looking to set up a list of five more of this in the next year, more programs like the one that I just described in Colombia. Just in Colombia, I think the country itself is a country of about 55 million people now. I think the country can easily support five.

Jason Hurt (23:58.851)
Yep.

Julio Martinez-Clark (24:10.476)
different advanced programs like this, each one with their own cyclotron or probably two cyclotrons that serve the sites. Brazil, we're speaking with one of the leading hospitals in South America, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. So yeah, it looks like it's gonna be a bright future for this industry.

Jason Hurt (24:18.402)
Yeah.

Jason Hurt (24:27.182)
Fantastic.

Well.

Yeah, absolutely. Anything I can do to help, please let me know.

Julio Martinez-Clark (24:37.816)
Excellent, Jason. Thank you so much for being the show. I enjoyed our conversation. I hope that the audience learned a lot from you.

Jason Hurt (24:43.298)
Likewise. I do too. Thanks, Leo. Take care.

Julio Martinez-Clark (24:49.757)
Alright Jason.