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Background: Iodine-131 labeled hypericin ( 131 I-Hyp) has been utilized as a necrosis-avid theragnostic tracer in a dual targeting pan-anticancer strategy called OncoCiDia. Widespread use of previously-tested solvent dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is limited by safety concerns. To tackle this, the present study was designed to explore a clinically feasible excipient for the formulation of the hydrophobic 131 I-Hyp for intravenous administration., Method: Solubility of Hyp in serial solutions of already-approved hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD) was evaluated by UVspectrophotometry and 50% HP-β-CD was chosen for further experiments. Two novel HP-β-CD-based formulations of 131 I-Hyp were compared with previous DMSO-based formulation, with regards to necrosis-targetability and biodistribution, by magnetic resonance imaging, single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), gamma counting, autoradiography, fluorescence microscopy and histopathology., Results: Hyp solubility was enhanced with increasing HP-β-CD concentrations. The radiochemical purity of 131 I-Hyp was higher than 90% in all formulations. The necrosis-targetability of 131 I-Hyp in the novel formulations was confirmed in vivo by SPECT and in vitro by autoradiography, fluorescence microscopy and histopathology. The plasma clearance of radioactivity was faster in the novel formulations., Conclusion: The novel 131 I-Hyp formulations with HP-β-CD could be a suitable pharmaceutical excipient for 131 I-Hyp for intravenous administration., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)