The Cracow-based CP OK2 Sp. z o.o. company has won EU tender proceedings to build in Świerk a centre for design and synthesis of new molecularly targeted drugs (CERAD). The company has signed the contract to build the facility before July 2021. Facility equipment will include a modern proton/deuteron/alpha particle cyclotron dedicated to produce radioisotopes.

The CERAD project is coordinated by NCBJ POLATOM Radiopharmaceutical Centre, which has played also the tenderer role. The tender formulae was “design and construct”. The CP OK2 company is fully owned by the Control Process holding. The contract to design, construct, and equip the CERAD centre was signed in Świerk by DSc. Krzysztof Kurek, NCBJ Director General, Dr. Dariusz Socha, NCBJ POLATOM Director, and Mr Tomasz Wiatr, CP OK2 sp. z o.o. Vice-president on December 12, 2017. The ceremony was attended by Prof. Renata Mikołajczak, leader of the CERAD project.

The CERAD project was proposed by a NCBJ-coordinated scientific consortium composed of NCBJ, Warsaw University, Institute of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology in Warsaw, Warsaw Medical University, Collegium Medicum of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, and Medical University in Białystok. Several months ago Polish authorities recommended the project to European Union by listing it on the Polish Research Facilities Roadmap list. The agreement to fund the project was signed in May this year in Information Processing Centre – National Research Institute (OPI PIB) in Warsaw, an institution assigned the task to implement in Poland the 4^th Priority Axis of the EU Smart Growth Operational Programme 2014-2020.

The CERAD centre in Świerk will be a modern research facility co-financed by European Union. Potential of NCBJ (with its POLATOM Radiopharmaceutical Centre, Maria research reactor, and Świerk Computer Centre) combined with potential of other consortium members should help to successfully run comprehensive research projects on new drugs and related diagnostic/therapeutical procedures. The centre will be located in a three-story building of total floor space of more than 2,500 sqm. The contractor will design and construct the building together with its entire infrastructure, and equip it with all indispensable utility and research systems. The building will house a cyclotron capable to accelerate protons and alpha particles up to 30 MV (million electron-volts) and deuterons up to 15 MeV, some radiopharmaceutical production lines, and several research labs. Radioisotopes needed for the radiopharmaceuticals will be produced by particles accelerated within the cyclotron hitting some specially selected targets. Every room/piece of the installed equipment will have to meet all safety requirements applicable at work with radioactive substances, as well as those applicable at work with substances intended for medical use.

„Thousands of patients are waiting for effects of work of scientists who will be working in the facility. Therefore the key issue for us will be to provide sufficient comfort for facility users, both by proper design and carefully selected equipment” – said Mr Wiatr. „Our holding is well experienced in accomplishing similar and even larger-scale research facilities. I am convinced that the object we jointly are going to develop will be a top-class facility.”

„We are very much counting on a smooth and timely implementation of the project” – said Prof. Kurek. – „After the project is successfully concluded, the radiopharmaceuticals-profiled R&D/manufacturing complex in Świerk will be unique in the Europe and one of the few such facilities in the world. And already now we have to start thinking about training scientists and engineers to prepare them well to conduct research using state-of-the-art instruments to be installed in the centre.”

The CERAD project is co-financed from EU funds allocated to the 4^th Priority Axis “Increasing the research potential”, Action 4.2 „Development of modern research infrastructure in the science sector” of the Smart Growth Operational Programme 2014-2020.