New York City-based PET radiopharmaceutical development company NCM USA announced this month that ImaginAb will be working on labeling zirconium-89 (Zr-89) and manufacturing practice in a new long-term contract with NCM.

NCM specializes in cyclotron-derived PET radiopharmaceuticals with manufacturing facilities located in the Bronx.

"Our ultra-modern facility in New York has allowed us to attract highly innovative companies such as ImaginAb to develop advanced biologics-based products for PET imaging and we are pleased that ImaginAb selected us as a partner," said NCM president Anwer Rizvi in a press release. "Our mission is to elevate the status of centralized PET drug manufacturing to the standard that the biopharma industry has enjoyed for many years."

ImaginAb’s expertise is radiopharmaceuticals that incorporate the company’s proprietary antibody fragment platform. Multiple partnerships are being secured to develop companion diagnostics in oncologic and immuno imaging.

"NCM is an example of what a technology-enabled PET manufacturing facility can be and where the field ultimately needs to progress in terms of flexibility and multi-isotope production,” said Christian Behrenbruch, CEO of ImaginAb. “We have chosen to partner with NCM to bring rapid clinical proof-of-concept development capabilities to both internal pipeline development and potentially some of our third-party pharma collaborations."