Discover & Learn

Come and see it first.
 

Built by the team behind NEPTIS^® with 20 years of radiochemistry expertise, something new is about to be revealed this autumn. Discover the latest IBA radiochemistry technology!
 

October 18 – 2.45 pm

Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, October 1^st, 7 a.m. - IBA (Ion Beam Applications S.A., EURONEXT), the world leader in particle accelerator technology and the world’s leading provider of radiopharmaceutical production solutions today announced a new agreement with ARTMS Inc. (a Telix company) for IBA to distribute ARTMS’s proprietary solid-target cyclotron technology, known as QUANTM^® Irradiation System (QIS^®), to support the expansion of theranostics worldwide.

With QIS^® referenced in FDA filings for multiple approved products, ARTMS is the only solid-target cyclotron technology solution in the U.S. with validated gallium-68 (⁶⁸Ga) and zirconium-89 (⁸⁹Zr) production. For shorter half-life isotopes such as ⁶⁸Ga, QIS^® enables decentralized, high-yield, multi-Curie production. Beyond ⁶⁸Ga and 89Zr, ARTMS continues to advance the high-efficiency, large-scale and cost-effective production of other commercially important radiometals, including technetium-99m (^99mTc) and copper-64 (⁶⁴Cu).

Under the partnership agreement, IBA will offer QIS^® to new and existing cyclotron customers worldwide, so that the accelerator and solid-target capability can be sourced, installed and serviced through a single supplier. QIS^® remains compatible with other cyclotron platforms, and ARTMS continues to serve its existing customers directly. The collaboration aims to accelerate the availability of innovative diagnostic and therapeutic isotopes to support the expansion of theranostics worldwide, through establishing scalable production infrastructures capable of meeting the rapidly growing needs of healthcare providers and patients.

IBA and Telix are working together to advance the future of radiometal-based medicine through a collaboration that brings together leading capabilities across the radiopharmaceutical value chain. By leveraging their respective strengths, IBA and Telix aim to contribute to a more integrated, reliable, and accessible radiopharmaceutical ecosystem.

Loïk-Maël Nys, President of IBA RadioPharma Solutions, commented: “These initiatives reinforce IBA's strategic vision to support the transformation of nuclear medicine toward a broad theranostic landscape relying on radiometals and emerging therapeutic isotopes. By combining IBA's expertise in particle acceleration and radiopharmaceutical manufacturing solutions with the complementary capabilities of ARTMS and Telix, we aim to simplify access to advanced production technologies while accelerating innovation across the radiopharmaceutical value chain.”

Chad Watkins, General Manager Isotope Strategy of Telix Pharmaceuticals, said: "Reliable local supply of gallium-68 and other radiometals is what allows precision oncology to reach more patients. IBA brings the reach and the service capability to put QIS^® within reach of sites that could not easily access it before."

Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, 27 August 2026, 7 a.m. - IBA (Ion Beam Applications S.A.), today announces its consolidated results for the first half of 2026, with performance on track with FY 2026 guidance and continued progress towards its profitability improvement trajectory. The period was marked by strong commercial momentum, notably in Proton Therapy and RadioPharma Solutions, as well as the strengthening of IBA’s leadership team and Board to support the Group’s growth and execution of its strategic roadmap.

Fluorine-18: half-life of 110 minutes. Gallium-68: 68 minutes. Astatine-211: 7.2 hours. Lutetium-177: 6.7 days.

Even for the longer-lived isotopes, every hour between production and injection is activity lost, meaning dose delivered to the patient decreases.

For the short-lived isotopes, the window is brutal. A [⁶⁸Ga]-labelled radiopharmaceutical produced at 7.00 AM may be largely unusable by 11.00 AM. A [¹⁸F]-labelled dose that leaves the production facility late due to a quality control delay may not meet specifications when it arrives at the hospital.

This is not a manufacturing problem that can be solved by producing more batches. It is a fundamental physical constraint that the entire supply chain must be designed around.
 

Radiometals are metallic radionuclides, radioactive isotopes of metallic elements, used in the production of radiopharmaceuticals for imaging or therapy.

Unlike Fluorine-18 ([¹⁸F]), the well-established for PET imaging, which is covalently bonded directly into small organic molecules and enters metabolic pathways, radiometals cannot simply be incorporated into a molecule through organic chemistry.

They require a chelator, a bifunctional molecule that has two functional ends: one that tightly binds the radiometal, and one that can be conjugated to a targeting vector (a peptide, antibody, nanobody, or another molecule).

The chelator acts as a molecular harness. It keeps the radiometal attached to the targeting vector throughout the journey to target.

Getting the chelation chemistry right is as important as choosing the right radiometal. Instability leads to off-target uptake in organs, increased toxicity, and reduced diagnostic or therapeutic efficacy.

An alpha particle is a helium nucleus — two protons and two neutrons, tightly bound together. Compared with other forms of ionizing radiation, it is relatively massive and carries a double positive charge.

That combination of mass and charge makes alpha particles interact very intensely with the matter they travel through. They lose energy rapidly, which is why their range in tissue is so short. And as they lose that energy, they deposit it in a very dense track of ionization events along an extremely short path.

The result is an extraordinarily high Linear Energy Transfer (LET), the amount of energy deposited per unit of distance travelled.

Alpha particles have a LET hundreds of times higher than that of beta-emitting radionuclides such as Lutetium-177.

In practice, that means alpha particles cause DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), the most difficult form of DNA damage a cell can sustain. Unlike single-strand breaks, which the cell's repair machinery can often fix, double-strand breaks are very difficult to repair correctly. The cells typically cannot survive them.