IBA Molecular: Lifting Hearts, Saving Lives
Laboratories
Written by Eric Slack   
Tuesday, 01 April 2008
IBA Molecular: Lifting Hearts, Saving Lives - Health Executive - Red Coat Publishing
Anwer Rizvi tells us how an immigrant’s dream helped build this global leader in nuclear medicine.
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Hearing Anwer Rizvi tell his story is like listening to living history. His is the tale of a man who literally rose from nothing to become a part of the nuclear medicine revolution. What Rizvi’s company, IBA Molecular, is to the field of nuclear medicine, Rizvi himself is to the American ideal that all men are created equal.

Anwer Rizvi, president - IBA Molecular: Lifting Hearts, Saving Lives - Health Executive - Red Coat Publishing
Anwer Rizvi, President
“This is the only country that allows you to come from anywhere in the world and work hard enough to become successful, whatever your background,” said Rizvi, who immigrated to the US from Karachi, Pakistan on March 23, 1974 and is now president of the company.

A life changing moment for Rizvi became a lifesaving opportunity for medicine. After growing up in Maryland and studying to become a nuclear medicine technologist, Rizvi and his business partners started their own nuclear medicine company, Eastern Isotopes. With the purchase of their first cyclotron in 1998, the company expanded to produce PET as well as nuclear medicine products.

IBA, a Belgian-based company focused on leveraging its core expertise in radiation diagnostics to save lives, acquired Rizvi’s Sterling, Va.-based Eastern Isotopes in 2001. IBA was founded in 1986 as an offshoot of the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve’s Cyclotron Research Center, which started producing cyclotrons in 1947. Cyclotrons speed up charged particles with high-frequency alternating voltage and are a key piece of the nuclear medicine age. They’re used to produce radiopharmaceuticals for nuclear medicine and PET diagnostic imaging studies.

“IBA was the world leader in cyclotron technology while we were one of the leaders on the distribution side. They were able to develop new technologies and platforms for us to implement with our system,” Rizvi said. “The partnership allows us to develop new molecules, new biomarkers, and improve productivity on current systems.”

IBA Molecular was formed five years after the acquisition of Eastern Isotopes. At that time, IBA merged all PET radiopharmaceuticals and isotopes activities with cyclotron equipment sales. The division was formed to offer global providers better access to more advanced isotopes and cyclotrons, something more easily achieved with IBA’s units working collectively. IBA Molecular now brings worldwide expertise and technological innovation to the marketplace with a global distribution network.

Investments in the development of the company’s cyclotron solutions, imaging agents, and distribution facilities over the next five years will be immense. Today, the company has 32 manufacturing sites globally with expansion plans over the next five years aimed at meeting increasing demands for new and existing diagnostic agents. It is also developing a product for kidney cancer clinical trials and is the first global provider of a new PET isotope called Iodine 124.

In addition, in 2006, the company launched a proprietary technology called Synthera to develop new biomarkers for cancer, neurological disorders, and heart diseases. The company even developed unique IT based solutions to monitor and track key matrixes in the organization, including distribution, production, and customer service. With rapid expansion and heavy capital investment plans already under way, Rizvi thinks the company can eventually expand its product usage beyond cancer.

“We want to cover a broader range of products, including neurology and cardiology applications,” he said. “That is why we are collaborating on new platforms and technologies to help launch new biomarkers into those respective areas.”

Learning to understand
With so much investment in technology, IBA Molecular is focusing just as heavily on education. Rizvi knows this is part of the future of medicine, and people have to understand what it is and how to use it. Right now, the company’s key product is a radiopharmaceutical called Fluorodeoxyglucose. It is the most commonly used PET imaging agent and requires intricate manufacturing plans. The drug has a half-life of two hours, which means it needs to be made every night and delivered daily on a per prescription basis.

To help with education efforts, the company has partnerships with industry associations like the Society of Nuclear Medicine and the Academy of Molecular Imaging and partners with academic institutions like the University of Pennsylvania as part of its molecular imaging educational campaign. The company also has internal training programs designed to help develop engineering professionals and certified nuclear pharmacists from within. This includes internship programs with some of its academic partners.

In the end, Rizvi’s motivation is because of his conviction that these products and technologies can help make medicine a more exact science. He said the technology holds the key to earlier diagnosis and treatment, allowing patients to receive a diagnosis before they show signs or symptoms of the disease. What Rizvi is talking about is the concept of personalized medicine.

“The field of molecular imaging changes the way diseases are treated by telling doctors where cancers exist,” he said. “In the future it is possible that molecular imaging agents will guide pharmaceuticals to their intended target molecules. Not systems, organs, or cells, but molecules. This will make the odds of a successful treatment course more viable.”

In addition to improving patient outcomes, these treatments can save hospitals money. Rather than putting patients through painful and expensive exploratory surgeries or treatments that are not effective, molecular imaging can target an individual’s unique disease and greatly aid doctors in guiding treatment plans.

“Nuclear medicine is safe and effective and will help change the one-size-fits-all approach to healthcare,” said Rizvi. “Molecular imaging is the right treatment for the right patient at the right time.”

It is fitting to know a similar, ethereal “right time, right place” concept played a large part in Rizvi’s role in continuing the evolution of nuclear medicine. The decision by Rizvi’s family to come to America led him to a pivotal role in shaping the future of medicine, and his decision to enter nuclear medicine led to his involvement with the leading company in the field. It is the realization of an American dream, one that could help change the future of more than just medicine.

 
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