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Gallium is a soft, silvery metal with a melting point so low it turns liquid in a warm hand. Gallium-68 is a synthetic radioisotope with a very short half-life of about 68 minutes.
Gallium-68 decays largely by positron emission, making it well suited to PET imaging. Its short half-life keeps patient exposure low while matching the fast uptake of small targeting molecules such as peptides. It pairs naturally with the therapeutic isotope lutetium-177 in theranostic approaches, imaging the same target that is later treated.
Gallium-68 is widely used in PET imaging of cancer. Labelled to PSMA ligands it detects prostate cancer, and to somatostatin analogues such as DOTATATE it images neuroendocrine tumours, often to select patients for matched lutetium-177 therapy.
Gallium-68 is produced by two routes. Traditionally it is eluted from a germanium-68/gallium-68 generator, where the longer-lived parent germanium-68 decays in a device used for in-hospital production. However, a generator yields only a few patient doses per elution, so it is increasingly produced directly via a proton irradiation route (currently in cyclotrons) which can generate higher quantities for an on-demand supply.
StandardX is developing an accelerator-based production platform for gallium-68 that supports both direct production and generator-based supply. This approach enables high-volume regional distribution through direct production, while also supporting broader distribution networks via generators.