Molecular imaging with copper-64 in the drug discovery and development arena.

The contribution of positron emission tomography (PET) to the drug discovery and development (D3) pipeline has been inhibited by the short half-lifes of PET radioisotopes, (11)C and (18)F, poor availability and the high cost of infrastructure. Copper-64 ((64)Cu) has a 12.7 h half-life, simple yet flexible radiochemistry and imaging characteristics that make it ideal for a wider application across the D3 arena. Recent scientific breakthroughs in the production of (64)Cu show that it's, commercial production can be made more widely available. More importantly, for pharmaceutical research and development programmes wishing to incorporate the high sensitivity and spatial resolution of PET, but no desire to implement and maintain expensive radiochemistry infrastructure, (64)Cu is an exciting option.