Hamburg, October 10th, 2015 - IBA (Ion Beam Applications S.A.), the world’s leading provider of proton therapy and radiopharmacy solutions, and ICNAS (Institute for Nuclear Sciences Applied to Health in Coimbra), a leading institution in molecular product research and production, announce at the European Association of Nuclear Medicine congress (EANM) the patent application EP15170854 on a process for producing and purifying Ga-68 using a liquid target system on a medium energy cyclotron to obtain Ga-68 labelled radiopharmaceuticals for human use.
In collaboration with researchers from ICNAS/ University of Coimbra in Portugal, IBA has filed a patent application for the liquid target production and purification of Ga-68 on a medium energy cyclotron - the IBA Cyclone® 18 - to produce high purity Ga-68 ready for labelling of radiopharmaceuticals suitable for human injection.
The increasing number of publications with Ga-68 for PET imaging has demonstrated the tremendous potential of this isotope covering a large spectrum of applications including cancer, cardiovascular disease, infection and inflammation. Most importantly, Ga-68 is a tool for the design of compounds with both diagnostic and therapeutic use (Theranostics). Ga-68 is currently been used in about 100 sites with an estimation of over 10,000 scans being performed every year in Europe.
Ga-68 is currently obtained locally using 68Ge/68Ga generators. The alternative - centralized production of Ga-68 using solid targets - is complex and only a few of the cyclotrons worldwide are actually equipped with the technology. The production of Ga-68 from a liquid target will enable hundreds of cyclotrons worldwide to produce the isotope, thus promoting the widespread use Ga-68 radiopharmaceuticals.
Many other advantages of using liquid targets to produce Ga-68 are identified. The process is similar to F-18 production allowing a seamless automation on Synthera platform, the liquid-target produced Ga-68 is compliant with current european pharmacopoeia and production can be easily adapted to GMP processes and the production is very cost effective and easily adapted for inhouse
use or distribution.
IBA and ICNAS have fully automated the process from target irradiation to radiopharmaceutical labelling employing commercially available IBA equipment: IBA Ga-68 target and Synthera Platform facilitating its set-up and operation for routine production.
