Photodynamic therapy is a more targeted treatment modality; utilizing light, oxygen, and a photosensitizer (prodrug) to induce cell damage and ultimately cell death. Current photosensitizers have many limitations leading to extensive studies over the past decade to develop the next generation of this prodrug. Two promising paths have focused on boron dipyrromethenes (BODIPY) and ruthenium(II) polypyridyl complexes; however, BODIPY dyes do not exhibit efficient singlet to triplet intersystem crossing (necessary for generating reactive oxygen species) and ruthenium(II) polypyridyl complexes have weak or no absorption within the PDT window (600-850 nm). By coordinatively combining Ru(II) polypyridyl complexes with pi-extended BODIPY dyes we have shown the ability to generate singlet oxygen within the PDT window and thus have generated a new class of photosensitizer.