National Institute for Radioelements officialises the appointment of its new General Manager
The Board of Directors of IRE (National Institute for Radioelements) has just announced the appointment of Erich Kollegger as General Manager of IRE and its innovation subsidiary, IRE Elit. He succeeds Jean-Michel Vanderhofstadt in the role. Erich Kollegger is already very familiar with IRE, having held the role of acting General Manager since 27 March.
A graduate of ‘Haute Ecole Léonard de Vinci’ (Brussels), Erich Kollegger started his career in the engineering and maintenance sector in 1999 when he joined Jacobs Engineering. Over the course of his career, the 50-year-old Belgian has acquired extensive experience in sectors as varied as chemicals, pharmaceuticals and consumer goods. Before joining the IRE team in March 2018, Erich Kollegger worked as Plant Manager for the Baxter Group at its Lessines facility.
Erich Kollegger, the new General Manager of IRE and IRE ELiT, shares his vision for the Institute’s future:
“IRE is, and intends to remain, a major global player in the production of the Molybdenum-99 radioisotope. For this, IRE has to overcome a number of challenges: the arrival on the market of new producers using different technologies, an increase in the cost of irradiating uranium, and competition from other radioisotopes for medical imaging. This is why IRE has undertaken development of an innovative technology for the production of Molybdenum-99, based not on Uranium-235 but on Molybdenum-100. This project, called SMART, has recently received approval from the Belgian government for a subsidy for the R&D phase under the National Investment Plan.
Furthermore, since 2010, IRE ELiT has served as our channel for diversification and a driver of growth by designing products that are not only keeping with our core area of expertise – radioelements - but are also fulfilling the needs of the medical world in terms of innovation. With the same tradition of excellence as IRE, we are certain that IRE ELiT can become a major player in the radiopharmaceuticals sector, as evidenced by the European marketing authorisation obtained a few months ago for our Gallium-68 generator which offers an advanced alternative for diagnosis of patients suffering from neuroendocrine tumours and recurrent prostate cancer”.
