Dresden radiation medicine players join forces

Academics and practitioners want to help shape the technology trend towards „radionuclide ligands“

Dresden, 23 October 2023. The radiation medicine industry in the Dresden-Radeberg area, which has been growing for years, has formed a „Rubin“alliance: The eight founding partners want to jointly promote innovations in nuclear medicine through the „Saxon Network for Radionuclide Theranostics“ (SNRT) and make the performance of the Saxon companies and institutes in this sector more visible throughout Germany and internationally. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has promised the new alliance twelve million euros in start-up funding. This is according to an announcement from the „Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf“ (HZDR), which is considered the nucleus of this sector in the Dresden area.

 Dresden wants to establish itself as a leading European location for radionuclide theranostics

„A regional entrepreneurial alliance for innovation“ is to be created, announced the HZDR. The region in and around Dresden has an excellent opportunity in international comparison to establish and develop local value chains in order to become the leading European innovation and production location for radionuclide theranostics, emphasised Director Prof. Klaus Kopka from the HZDR Institute of Radiopharmaceutical Cancer Research.

Low-radiation isotopes initially used primarily for tumour localisation

Oncologists have been using low-level radioactive preparations for decades to better detect and treat tumours and other abnormalities in a patient's body. In the meantime, however, further prospects are emerging for these radionuclides as „theranostics“ that combine precise diagnosis, localisation and the destruction of cancerous growths. Ligands called key molecules are used for this purpose, which dock onto very specific cancer cells and then release their radioactive cargo there in the most precise doses possible. This allows even very small tumours to be detected and combated at an early stage.

These „radionuclide ligands“ of course require a great deal of medical and technological expertise – and this has traditions in the Dresden area that go back to the GDR era. Even when the HZDR was still an academy institute, it was the central radionuclide supplier for hospitals throughout the GDR with its nuclear facilities. In addition, the Rossendorf „Central Institute for Nuclear Physics“ (ZfK) was already cooperating with the Medical Academy (Medak), which became the Unklinikum Dresden after reunification.

Around 1000 jobs are linked to nuclear medicine technology in the greater Dresden area

In the meantime, the HZDR and the University Hospital have expanded this collaboration. In addition, several companies have established themselves in and around Dresden that are involved in one way or another with radiation medicine products. In addition to the HZDR and the University Medical Centre at TU Dresden, the founders of the new Rubin Alliance include the radiopharmaceutical company „Rotop“ from Rossendorf, the CUP laboratory of Dr Freitag in Radeberg, the Biotype and its sister company Qualitype from Dresden-Hellerau, the association „VKTA – Strahlenschutz, Analytik und Entsorgung Rossendorf“ and the medical technology automation company „Jähne“ from Dresden. The BMBF also names Trimt GmbH –Entwicklung von Radiotheranostik“ as the ninth starting member. In total, the „Radiopharmaceutical Valley Saxony“ in the triangle Dresden – Radeberg – Rossendorf now employs around 1000 people, according to the HZDR.

The new network aims to make medical radionuclides available in sufficient quantities for studies and clinical practice, explains HZDR Innovation Manager Dorit Teichmann. „In addition, in order to enable developments with new radionuclides, the aim of the alliance is to concentrate all processes from research to use in clinics regionally and thus offer optimal conditions for the production of nuclear medicine drugs in Saxony.“

Unique density of relevant companies

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research has high hopes for the new radiopharmaceutical alliance in Saxony: "The density of relevant companies is unique in Germany," the ministry emphasises. As a result, the Dresden region could develop into a leading European innovation centre for radionuclide theranostics with a wide range of products and services in the long term.

New accelerators and isotopes planned

Some specific projects are also already on the SNRT agenda: In addition to the isotopes fluorine-18 for the diagnosis of bone metastases, iodine-123 for the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease and carbon-11 for positron tomography, the partners want to produce special therapeutic radionuclides in the future and prepare them for clinical use. These include, for example, luthetium-177, which has so far only been produced in very limited quantities in research reactors worldwide. In order to change this, the Saxons also need to construct or further develop new types of cyclotrons, rhodotron electron accelerators and other accelerator technologies as well as associated targets. It is therefore to be expected that further players, for example from the scientific plant engineering sector, could join the founders in the future.

Source: Oiger from 23 October 2023