Automated radiosynthesis of Ga for large-scale routine production using Zn pressed target.

Gallium-68 (Ga) has attracted increasing interest in recent years due to the expanding clinical applications of Ga-based radiopharmaceuticals (Rahbar et al., 2017). Ga is mainly produced via Ge/Ga generators that are limited in yield by the Ge activity (typically up to 1.85 GBq at calibration time). With the increased-demand of Ga in nuclear medicine for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, there is a need for more efficient and robust production methods to obtain larger amounts of [Ga]GaCl with high radionuclidic and radiochemical purity and apparent molar activity (AMA) for facilitating the distribution of Ga-based radiopharmaceuticals. The objectives of this study were to develop a fast and efficient process for the preparation of Zn-based solid targets and to optimize the critical parameters for the automated radiosynthesis of [Ga]GaCl for large-scale routine production.