The Bioscience Cooperative Research Centre CIC biomaGUNE, and the pharmaceutical company Molypharma will supply radiopharmaceuticals to the Basque health network and several neighbour autonomous communities after reaching today an agreement of collaboration in the field of molecular image. CIC biomaGUNE will produce in its installations in San Sebastian molecules with radioactive isotope for its own research. Molypharma will distribute in the health system the industrially elaborated radiopharmaceuticals.
The production of this drug, generically called FDG and used in diagnose tests for illnesses like cancer or Alzheimer, will be performed with isotopes generated in a cyclone type particles accelerator, which the centre in San Sebastian will have and that will become one of the few existing in Spain. The agreement with Molypharma will allow CIC biomaGUNE to obtain an economic returns estimated in 700.000 euros annually.
The cyclotron is part of CIC biomaGUNE future Molecular Image Unit, a technologic platform of first order considered by the Spanish government as an singular scientific installation, which will suppose an investment of more than 12 million euros and is forecast to be functioning in 2008.
The agreement reached with Molypharma, the main industrial reference of radiopharmaceuticals in Spain, will allow, together with the research task, the commercialisation of the radiopharmaceuticals produced in biomaGUNE in the Basque health network and in other autonomous communities in the north of Spain, as well as the joint participation in R&D programs.
Both parties will collaborate in the design, construction and setting up of the installations for the manufacture of the radiopharmaceutical FDG (18F- fludesoxiglucose), used in the Positron Emission Tomography (PET imaging), a diagnose which has applications in oncology, cardiology and neurology, like the early diagnose for Alzheimer.
Molecular Image Unit
The CIC biomaGUNE Cyclotron will be the only installation of this type in Euskadi when its start operating in 2008. Together with a positron emission tomography (PET imaging) where molecules marked with the generated isotopes will be used, and another Image Magnetic Resonance, the cyclotron and the radio-pharmacy installations will constitute the future CIC bioGUNE Molecular Image Unit.
The CIC biomaGUNE Molecular Image Unit is currently in a design phase and under construction under the supervision of a Committee of Experts. This unit is created with the aim of becoming one of the greatest technologic platforms created until now in the molecular image field not only in the Basque country but in the whole of Spain.
The Molecular Image Unit will allow boosting in a substantial way CIC biomaGUNE’s research capacity and will offer, at the same time, a series of highly specialised services for research centres, hospitals and companies.
The different image techniques that will be established, including SPECT-CT, MRI, PET-CT, will count with specific research laboratories managed by Scientifics also recruited internationally.
Closely working with CIC bioGUNE, CIC biomaGUNE aims at identifying new opportunities in the bioscience field, carrying out excellent researches, replying to international challenges with the vocation of contributing to the development of the just born Biotechnology sector in the Basque Country