ULAN-UDE, December 10. /TASS/. Production of a drug to diagnose brain cancer will begin at the Ulan-Ude Nuclear Medicine Center in 2026, the center's Director General Kirill Arkhipov told TASS.
"We are preparing to launch production of a drug to diagnose brain cancer," he said. "I think we will start producing and using the drug from the first quarter of 2026."
In 2025, Ulan-Ude's Central Medical Center obtained a number of licenses, which, among other things, allow supplying drug 18 fluoro FDG (18-FDG) to diagnose about 90% of nosology forms of cancer, to other medical institutions, involved in diagnosis but having no production facilities. "For example, we are ready to supply this drug to Vladivostok, and negotiations are underway," he said, adding in 2026, the Ulan-Ude Medical Center may be equipped to produce drugs for radiotherapy.
In 2025, about 9,000 patients have been treated at the Ulan-Ude Nuclear Medicine Center. They come from the Buryatia, Irkutsk, Trans-Baikal, Amur and Primorsky Regions. The center was opened in October 2022, and has diagnosed more than 23,000 people.
The Nuclear Medicine Center's staff is about 70 people. Students of the Ulyanovsk State University undergo internships there every year. "We are always happy to cooperate, implement joint educational and other projects, including with partners from neighboring Mongolia," the center's director general added.
About the center
The Ulan-Ude Nuclear Medicine Center is a business resident of the Buryatia Advanced-Development Territory, enjoying a number of tax benefits and incentives. The center has its own production of radiopharmaceutical medicines, equipped with a cyclotron and a radiochemical laboratory, a quality control laboratory, and two PET/CT scanners. The project was implemented under a concession agreement, with the total cost of more than 1.1 billion rubles ($14.3 million), where 400 million rubles ($5.2 million) are from the federal budget - funds from the unified Far Eastern subsidy, and the rest came from the concessionaire.