Radioisotopes in Drug Research and Development: Focus on Positron Emission Tomography

The use of radioisotopes is important in pharmaceutical research and development (R&D). They are frequently used in non-clinical and clinical studies for the development of compounds for different therapeutic areas, such as central nervous system (CNS) diseases (e.g. Dementia, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and Parkinson’s disease), oncology, and metabolic diseases (e.g. diabetes mellitus). Pharmaceutical companies invest a lot of time and money in research on new treatment strategies for diseases with a high medical need, such as oncology and metabolic diseases. A large amount of drugs fails during development due to toxicity and/or the lack of efficacy (Kola, I, 2008). Several attempts are being made to improve this, such as obtaining a better understanding of the pathophysiology of diseases, development of robust animal models, the application of biomarkers, development of pharmacokinetic (PK) pharmacodynamic (PD) models, and the application of non-invasive techniques such as positron emission tomography (PET) in an early stage of development.