Supply and installation of Two PET Radiopharmaceutical Synthesisers to Sir Charles Gardiner Hospital

Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital (SCGH) houses the State’s only medical cyclotron and is the sole supplier of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) radiopharmaceutical products for Western Australia’s patient population in both the public and private sector.

The medical cyclotron and radiopharmaceutical production facility located at SCGH is a unique state wide service. The facility is the sole producer of cyclotron derived 18F-radiopharmaceutical tracers in the state, providing over 20,000 doses of 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) and specialised radiopharmaceuticals in 2019 with an average growth rate of 15% per annum. The Radiopharmaceutical Production and Development Centre (RAPID) is the busiest laboratory of its kind in Australia.

The demand for PET radiopharmaceuticals has risen nationally in the past decade and is the focus of greater scrutiny by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) into the production process. New and established production laboratories will ultimately seek certification for Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) by the TGA.

The modules supplied as a result of this tender will replace two aging radiopharmaceutical modules which operate based on technology first introduced commercially in the 1990s. These two modules were purchased in 2004 and 2008 and are still in use routinely for clinical patients but are now nearing the end of their useful life.