Ga-68 PRODUCTION ON IBA CYCLOTRON USING LIQUID TARGET

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 less than 1% of the cyclotrons worldwide are actually equipped with the technology.
The production of Ga-68 from a liquid target could enable hundreds of cyclotrons worldwide to produce the isotope, thus promoting the widespread use Ga-68 radiopharmaceuticals.Other advantages of using liquid targets to produce Ga-68 include:
- process is similar to F-18 production allowing a seamless automation on Synthera® platform
- liquid-target produced Ga-68 is compliant with current Eur. Ph. and production can be easily adapted to GMP processes
- production is very cost effective and easily adapted for in-house use or distribution.
IBA and ICNAS have fully automated the process from target irradiation to radiopharmaceutical labelling employing commercially available IBA equipment: Ga-68 target and Synthera® Platform facilitating its set-up and operation for routine production.