Revolutionising Pb-212 QC: The growing partnership between LabLogic and AdvanCell
25/11/2025
The radiopharmaceutical company has been an early adopter of LabLogic’s new QC solution for radio-HPLC analysis
AdvanCell is pioneering Targeted Alpha Therapy, rapidly translating a reliable supply of radiopharmaceuticals using 212Pb to commercial scale. The Australian company has been one of the first adopters of LabLogic’s new Spec-RAM LC, a gamma spectrometer for radio-HPLC analysis that supersedes fraction collection and gamma counting.
In our newest video, Chief Scientific Officer Simon Puttick tells us why the burgeoning relationship between AdvanCell and LabLogic is generating increasing excitement for 212Pb radiopharmaceuticals.
Existing problems in existing 212Pb QC
Speaking about the challenges of developing Quality Controls for lead radiopharmaceuticals, Simon said, “As we started to look a little bit deeper, you find out that, yes, you can see the lead, but you can also see the bismuth, and you can see the thallium; you can see all the other isotopes, and they're all jumbled up … and that makes traditional radio-HPLC really quite challenging.”
“We've been stuck with having to fractionate a chromatogram and then put those fractions onto a gamma counter, waiting till equilibrium, and then identifying which isotope was making up the signal on the chromatogram. That's a really time-consuming and often quite inaccurate process.”
“It really streamlines development QC, release testing – everything!”
The Spec-RAM LC is supported by new updates in LabLogic’s chromatography data collection and analysis software, Laura Radiopharma. This uses time-resolved gamma spectrometry and innovative peak-finding tools to fully automate the measurement of radiochemical purity (RCP).
Simon said, “I think [the Spec-RAM LC and updates to Laura Radiopharma] are a massive innovation in the field. [It allows you] to separate spectrally the different signals arising from the different isotopes and decay chain, separate out all the different chromatograms almost in real-time, and identify what's your lead species, what's your bismuth species, what's your what's your thallium species. It really streamlines development QC, release testing – everything! So, it really does revolutionise HPLC.”
“It's a complete revolution”
Simon highlighted the importance of compatibility between systems, allowing new developments to seamlessly integrate with existing solutions.
“I honestly think one of the most advantageous pieces for us from the LabLogic offering is the integration with existing software systems. That is a critical piece for me … having that novel hardware, and its great hardware, integrated with a software system that everybody's familiar with – and it's validated and is accepted by the regulatory bodies – makes this a very, very streamlined roll in of that product into routine workflows, and that's critical … It's a complete revolution.”
The importance of GMP in radiopharmaceutical manufacture
“GMP compliance is everything at late-stage development … Beyond just treating patients in compassionate use settings or in early-stage trials, if we really want to make drugs that are going to impact the lives of patients, it must be GMP manufactured. Everything must be compliant with GMP manufacture on a commercial scale. That's why, not only is regulatory compliance essential, but time is absolutely essential for short lived isotopes.
“Ultimately, with short-lived isotopes, like 212Pb, time is product. So, the faster you can make a process, the better the yield of the process … The quicker we can get QC testing and release testing done, the more doses we're going to get out of one batch. And so being able to streamline those QC processes, compress the time that it takes to do that data collection, data manipulation, reconstruction, get a report, click button – done! – the more patients we're going to be able to treat on a given day … So that's hugely valuable.”
The value of an integrated LIMS system
“The ability for data collection software packages [like Laura Radiopharma] to integrate with LIMS systems [like PETra] or other information management systems is very, very valuable. Having everything streamlined into one network system makes audit trails easier. It makes investigating data integrity a lot more straightforward.”
“I'd love to embark on new journeys with the LabLogic team”
“The service from LabLogic is exceptional … Just the time that you guys put into trying to solve our problems, the time that you put into understanding our problems, and then coming up with really quite creative, amazing solutions is fantastic.
“The team are a pleasure to work with. It's always enjoyable to have the interaction with the LabLogic scientists … It's a partnership I really, really hope to grow between AdvanCell and LabLogic. There's a lot of other technical challenges that are looming on the horizon for radiopharmaceutical development that will require innovative, collaborative solutions to solve them, and I'd love to embark on new journeys with the LabLogic team.”
Find out more
You can learn more about LabLogic’s new Spec-RAM LC gamma spectrometer by clicking the button below to speak to a product specialist directly.