From the June 2017 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine

The utility of [18F]FDG, although shown to be useful in a variety of circumstances, is limited for visualization of the brain due to high background uptake in normal brain tissue. For example, the determination of amyloid plaques associated with neurodegenerative disease requires the development of alternative imaging agents. In recent years, several new PET imaging agents have been brought to market through commercial entities and academics alike.

The first major effort was undertaken by Avid Radiopharmaceuticals for the commercialization of [18F]Florbetapir (known as AMYVID or AV-45). With FDA approval being granted in early 2011, [18F]Florbetapir showed great promise of becoming a sustainable new PET imaging agent. However, the proper utilization of the drug hinged on a therapeutic agent also coming to market, which to date, has not been the case.


Even though the future of [18F]Florbetapir remains uncertain, release of new amyloid imaging agents has not been hampered. The most recent approval for a novel PET imaging agent has been [18F]Fluciclovine (known as 18F-FACBC), gaining FDA approval in May of 2016. This agent has gained interest in the oncology community, especially in prostate cancer, and is currently gearing up for large-scale production and distribution through a partnership with Blue Earth Diagnostics (the developer of [18F]Fluciclovine) and Siemens’ PETNET Solutions. Lastly, one cannot ignore the success of [18F]Florbetaben (formerly known as BAY-949172), which was originally developed by Bayer and gained FDA acceptance in 2015.

With all three of these agents competing for the top spot as the next highly used PET imaging agent, the future of this field does indeed look promising. Additionally, a large number of new PET agents are being reported and tested each day in both pharmaceutical companies and academia, utilizing other PET isotopes, including carbon-11, gallium-68 and zirconium-89. With the advent of new radiopharmaceuticals and increasing utilization in the pursuit of precision medicine, future applications of PET are nearly unlimited.

About the authors: Michael L. Nickels, Ph.D., is the technical director of the PET Radiochemistry Research Laboratories, Radiology and Radiological Sciences at Vanderbilt University. Michael Schulte, Ph.D., is a research instructor at Vanderbilt University. H. Charles Manning, Ph.D., is the director, Vanderbilt Center for Molecular Probes and Molecular Imaging Research.

Back to HCB News

June 2017 Magazine

Read more stories from the June 2017 issue

Molecular Imaging Homepage