Company Report: IRE
Premier Belgian nuclear research institute For almost 40 years, IRE has been leading the way in nuclear research from its base in Belgium. We find out more

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IRE (Institut National des Radioéléments) is a nuclear research institute in Belgium and founded by the Belgian government. Formed in 1971, it came from a decision from the Belgium government to get some more investments in the southern part of the country. As the website states, the IRE is a public utility foundation whose main missions are to contribute to public health and environmental protection. As a major producer of radioelements used for diagnoses and therapeutics in nuclear medicine, every year the IRE contributes to saving the lives of millions of individuals throughout the world. At the same time, the Institute is involved in the protection of the environment by using technologies that monitor and measure the radioactivity levels in soil, air and water.

The IRE contributes to public health through the production of radioelements used in nuclear medicine for diagnostic purposes (screening for malignant tumours, analysis of organ malfunction) and therapeutic purposes (cancer treatment, palliative care).

The radio elements (or radioactive isotopes) produced by the IRE (xenon- 133, molybdenum-99, iodine-131) are “pharmaceutical active ingredients” that are active within the medicinal products injected into patients. Though these elements are not in themselves medicinal products, they are, nonetheless, subject to production procedures and quality tests very similar to those applied to medicinal products.

A BACKGROUND IN INDUSTRIAL PHARMACY

General Manager Jean-Michel Vanderhofstadt has an extensive background in industrial pharmacy and also has business qualifications. His work has taken him around Europe, with bases ranging from Ireland to Sweden to the Czech Republic before coming back to Belgium as General Manager of IRE in the summer of 2008.

He arrived to a crisis - an accidental incident whereby iodine was slowly released into the air made national news in Belgium - but the event paved the way for IRE to move forward. “That was positive in a way because it gave the possibilities to speed up all the changes I was willing to introduce,” says Vanderhofstadt. “I wanted to get IRE managed more like a private company with more ambitious and more strategic planning in the long run, both on the medicine side and the environment and monitoring side.”

After the iodine incident IRE put a focus on the strengthening of the safety and security of the plant by significant investment in monitoring, ventilation, alarm systems and many other organisational and industrial improvement programmes. These plans represent an investment of more than 20 million euros.

There are also complete renovations of certain parts of the premises on the go, with the main parts of the hot cells being replaced in facilities. IRE also spent some money in fire protection systems. The monitoring systems are being completely rebuilt, and there have been added some filtration barriers in the production facilities with more safety protections too. “We have also invested in time and effort in communication,” explains Vanderhofstadt.

“We have changed completely our corporate image and logo and communication to the neighbourhood and population around us with frequent meetings and leaflets.” Also, a lot of investment has gone into training and recruitment of people - IRE has increased the staff by 10 percent in past year.

What positions have become available? Well, IRE has recruited a number of new personnel in production, quality, safety and management this year. “Please note also that for the first time, a marketing and sales manager has just been appointed in order for IRE to play an even more active role globally in the industry,” says Vanderhofstadt.

IRE ELIT

For the moment, IRE is working actively in the creation of a subsidiary company, IRE ELiT which will be created shortly. The company will host the radio pharma business and IRE has invested a considerable amount in GMP (good manufacturing practices). “That is a way of organising production in the pharma business, the number of hygiene constraints preventing cross contamination, good practices for building premises, and so on,” says Vanderhofstadt.

IRE has invested in new labs and these will be sold to the subsidiary company. The ‘parent’ company also creates everything in the subsidiary company - such as the environmental monitoring activities and service providing activity. “The IRE site hosts another subsidiary company, named Transrad, whose high expertise is in transport and logistics, exclusively in relation with nuclear material of all categories and worldwide,” Vanderhofstadt continues.

In the radio chemical business, IRE is actively working with its suppliers and the people dealing with research reactors. A press conference has just taken place in Prague where IRE has launched the new production supply chain for this reactor. “That will increase the throughput to the nuclear medicine business,” says Vanderhofstadt. IRE is also working with other reactors, for instance in conjunction with the University of Munich, where it is investing in new capacities for production of radio isotopes, with a number of initiatives in that field. “There is a big shortage situation right now globally for radio isotopes for nuclear medicine,” says Vanderhofstadt. “It is a crisis situation marketwide so we are trying here with other stakeholders to mitigate the crisis as much as we can by investing in new sourcing,” he adds. And if any operation can succeed in the task, this worldwide leading institution in its field surely will.

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