From imaging to better dosing: IMAGING4DRUGS builds integrated infrastructure for drug development

News September 24, 2026

fehrmann

Molecular imaging is playing an increasingly important role in drug development. By showing where a drug reaches in the body, whether it reaches its target and what biological response it triggers, it can provide valuable information at an early stage. A newly awarded project within PharmaNL’s Shared Development Infrastructure programme aims to further strengthen these capabilities. Through IMAGING4DRUGS, UMCG, together with its partners, is building an integrated molecular imaging infrastructure accessible to both academic and private parties. The project is supported by PharmaNL and made possible by ZonMw.

Drug development is associated with considerable uncertainty. A compound may appear promising but ultimately fail to produce the desired effect. Molecular imaging can help provide earlier insight into what happens in the body. “You don’t want to find out only in phase 3 that the drug doesn’t work after all,” says Prof. Rudolf Fehrmann, internist-oncologist at the UMCG and project leader of IMAGING4DRUGS. “If you have better information about how your drug behaves at an early stage, you can make different decisions.”

From fragmented expertise to a single point of access

UMCG already has extensive expertise and facilities for molecular imaging. However, these are spread across different departments and are not always sufficient in terms of capacity. IMAGING4DRUGS therefore focuses not on building an entirely new infrastructure, but on integrating, scaling up and optimising what is already available.

“You want an external party to be able to come through one simple front door with a project,” Fehrmann explains. “We then make sure behind the scenes that all the facilities, knowledge and expertise needed are brought together seamlessly.”

The infrastructure will bring together tracer production, molecular imaging, biosampling, omics and data analysis. Omics technologies map molecular characteristics such as genes, proteins and metabolites on a large scale. AI will also play an increasingly important role, for example in analysing and interpreting imaging data and linking molecular information to what is visible on a scan.

Clinical studies

The applications do not start only when a drug is being investigated in patients. The IMAGING4DRUGS infrastructure can also be used in the preclinical phase, for example to study the effects of a compound or tracer in animal models. The development and labelling of tracers are also among the potential applications.

Combining imaging with molecular analyses provides a more complete picture of how a drug behaves. A scan can show where a drug is located, while additional analyses can provide insight into the biological response.

Optimal dose

One important application is determining the optimal dose. In an early clinical phase, researchers currently look at the maximum tolerated dose, among other things. But the dose a patient can tolerate is not necessarily the dose that works best.

Molecular imaging can help connect drug exposure, target engagement, efficacy and toxicity more effectively. This provides a stronger basis for determining the optimal dose. It can also help developers make earlier decisions about the future of a drug. If a compound does not reach its target or fails to produce the expected biological response, development can be adjusted or stopped.

“If we think a drug reaches the tumour and achieves target engagement, but that turns out not to be the case, the drug cannot work,” says Fehrmann. “You can then stop it in phase 1 rather than proceeding to phases 2 and 3.” This allows time and development budgets to be redirected to other promising compounds.

Accessible to a broad user base

IMAGING4DRUGS targets a broad range of users, including international and Dutch pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies, academic research groups and CROs. They can use the infrastructure for both preclinical research and clinical studies.

The project involves collaboration with, among others, LIFE Cooperative and iPsomics. iPsomics emerged from an earlier PharmaNL-funded project. Where possible, existing regional and national expertise and facilities will be used. In this way, IMAGING4DRUGS contributes to the objective of PharmaNL’s Shared Development Infrastructure programme: making infrastructure and expertise accessible to a broader range of parties and strengthening collaboration within the Dutch drug development ecosystem.

Scaling up for sustainable development

Over the next four years, three priorities will be central: optimising the customer process, scaling up parts of the infrastructure, and strengthening its national and international position. For Fehrmann, the project will be successful if users quickly know where to go, are well supported throughout the process, and have access to the equipment and expertise they need. But the ambition goes further: after four years, the facility should be able to continue developing independently.

“It’s really about scaling up and optimisation,” says Fehrmann. Ultimately, the infrastructure should contribute to precision medicine: better determining which drug works for which patient, at what dose and with what risks. “It will enable us to better determine the optimal dose of a drug and to better select the patients we think are most likely to benefit from it. At the same time, it may also help reduce toxicity for patients.”