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Copper is an abundant metal, used across industry for 10,000 years. In contrast to its stable everyday forms, copper-64 is a synthetic radioisotope produced for medicine, with a half-life of 12.7 hours.
Copper-64 is an unusually versatile isotope because it decays through three routes at once: positron emission suited to PET imaging, alongside electron capture and beta decay that carry therapeutic potential. Its relatively low positron energy produces sharp images, while the same chemistry allows a single agent to both diagnose disease and, at higher doses, treat it.
This dual capability has made copper-64 the basis of hundreds of clinical studies. It is attached to somatostatin analogues, PSMA ligands, antibodies, and small molecules, used both to image tumours and to select and monitor patients for treatment. A prominent example is copper-64 SAR-bisPSMA, in development for prostate cancer imaging.
The main production route bombards an enriched nickel-64 target with protons in a cyclotron. Nickel-64 is scarce and costly, and few facilities meet the technical requirements for radiopharmaceutical-grade production, which has long constrained supply.
The StandardX accelerator platform is capable of commercial-scale production to meet growing oncology demand.