Lantheus to license Bracco's CardioGen PET tracer

By AuntMinnie.com staff writers

September 24, 2008 -- Lantheus Medical Imaging of North Billerica, MA, has signed a deal to license the CardioGen-82 rubidium-82 PET radiopharmaceutical from Bracco Diagnostics of Princeton, NJ.

CardioGen-82 is the only generator-based PET cardiac perfusion agent approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and reimbursed for coronary artery disease evaluation, according to the companies. The radiotracer was approved by the FDA in 1989 and has been used in hundreds of thousands of patients since then, the companies said.

CardioGen sales have been experiencing double-digit year-over-year growth since 2003, and the firms expect that the new deal will further add to the product's sales.