Production of [18F]DPA-714, [18F]fallypride and [18F]LBT-999 using iMiDEV, a fully automated microfluidic platform: towards clinical radiopharmaceutical production

Background

Positron emission tomography is widely used to study biological processes without disrupting normal physiological functions. Traditional radiotracer synthesis and industrial market is focused on producing large batches of ¹⁸F-labelled tracers, especially [¹⁸F]FDG. Accessibility to smaller quantity of diverse radiopharmaceuticals is a key to enable a more personalised approach in nuclear medicine. A novel microfluidic module, iMiDEV™, has earlier been shown to be a versatile labelling platform as it has been used in the production of Na[¹⁸F]F and various ¹¹C- and ⁶⁸ Ga-labelled tracers. In the current study our aim was to utilise iMiDEV™ in the synthesis of fluorine-18-labelled radiotracers, specifically [¹⁸F]DPA-714, [¹⁸F]LBT-999 and [¹⁸F]fallypride.

Results

[¹⁸F]DPA-714, [¹⁸F]LBT-999 and [¹⁸F]fallypride have been produced in up to 24%, 12% and 11% radiochemical yield, respectively, using the microfluidics based iMiDEV™ labelling platform. Activity yields at the end of synthesis were 3.6 GBq, 2.1 GBq and 2.3 GBq, respectively. All individual synthesis steps were studied for efficient activity transfer and labelling and the optimised synthesis sequence was fully automated.

Conclusion

In this paper, we have demonstrated fully automated production of different ¹⁸F-tracers of clinical relevance with moderate to good yields using microfluidic iMiDEV™ platform. Our work is a step towards more personalised, dose-on-demand manufacturing of PET radiopharmaceuticals.