# Quirem Medical

Source: https://nuclide.cc/companies/quirem-medical/  
Nuclide record `quirem-medical` (Company). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from Nuclide (nuclide.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

A Dutch company, owned by Terumo, that makes tiny radioactive beads containing holmium-166 which are injected into the liver's blood vessels to irradiate liver tumours from the inside, plus the imaging tools used to plan and check that treatment.

## Summary

Quirem Medical B.V. is a Netherlands-based medical device company, spun out of University Medical Centre Utrecht (UMCU) after roughly two decades of academic development of holmium-166 microsphere technology. It develops and manufactures the Holmium Platform for selective internal radiation therapy (SIRT, also called radioembolisation) of liver tumours: QuiremSpheres (therapeutic holmium-166 microspheres), QuiremScout (a low-activity holmium-166 scout dose used for pre-treatment work-up in place of 99mTc-MAA), and Q-Suite (dosimetry planning and verification software). QuiremSpheres are, per the company, the only commercially available SIRT microspheres containing holmium-166 rather than yttrium-90, a property that allows them to be visualised and quantified by both SPECT and MRI even at low concentrations, which the company says supports more accurate patient selection, dose planning and post-treatment dose verification than yttrium-90-based competitor products.

Terumo Corporation first invested in Quirem in 2015 and became its exclusive global distributor, then acquired an 80.1% stake (taking full ownership) in July 2020 for an upfront $20 million plus up to $25 million in milestone payments through 2030, folding Quirem into Terumo's interventional oncology portfolio. The full Holmium Platform is CE-marked and available across Europe, the Middle East and Africa; in the UK, NICE recommended QuiremSpheres for hepatocellular carcinoma patients with Child-Pugh A liver function when conventional transarterial therapies are inappropriate (2024), triggering NHS reimbursement. Clinical evidence includes the HEPAR Primary study (published Journal of Nuclear Medicine, 2022), which reported a 54% objective response rate at three months in unresectable HCC patients (BCLC stage B and C) without curative options, and the earlier HEPAR dose-escalation study (Lancet Oncology, 2012) supporting safety and efficacy in chemorefractory liver metastases.

Quirem sits in the radioembolisation supply chain as a smaller, differentiated challenger to the market-leading yttrium-90 microsphere products (Sirtex's SIR-Spheres, Boston Scientific's TheraSphere), competing on the imaging and dosimetry advantages of holmium-166 rather than on scale.

## Fields

- Kind: Company
- Status: active
- Last checked: 2026-09-22
- Also known as: Quirem Medical B.V.
- Tags: holmium-166; radioembolisation; liver cancer; SIRT
- HQ: Deventer, the Netherlands
- Type: radiopharma
- Website: https://www.quirem.com

## Sources

- Terumo: Terumo Acquires Quirem Medical to Enhance its Interventional Oncology Portfolio (2020): https://www.terumo.com/newsrelease/detail/20200715/543
- Terumo: NICE publishes new guidance supporting QuiremSpheres for HCC (2024): https://www.terumo.com/newsrelease/detail/20240703/6221
- Terumo: Holmium-166 SIRT demonstrates safety and efficacy in HEPAR Primary study (JNM 2022) (2022): https://www.terumo.com/newsrelease/detail/20220614/5296
- Terumo: Terumo and Quirem welcome positive reimbursement decision for QuiremSpheres in the Netherlands (2018): https://www.terumo.com/newsrelease/detail/20180412/274
- Quirem: administration procedure manual (PDF): https://www.quirem.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/LC-8007204-Administration-Procedure-Manual.pdf

## Connected records

- technologies: [Radioembolisation (TARE / SIRT, yttrium-90)](https://nuclide.cc/technologies/radioembolisation-tare/), [SPECT & bone scan](https://nuclide.cc/technologies/spect/)
- indications: [Hepatocellular carcinoma](https://nuclide.cc/indications/hcc/), [Intermediate hepatocellular carcinoma (BCLC B)](https://nuclide.cc/indications/hcc-intermediate/)
- companies: [Boston Scientific](https://nuclide.cc/companies/boston-scientific/), [Sirtex Medical](https://nuclide.cc/companies/sirtex/)
- terms: [TARE / SIRT (radioembolisation with yttrium-90)](https://nuclide.cc/terms/tare/)
- isotopes: [Holmium-166](https://nuclide.cc/isotopes/ho-166/), [Technetium-99m](https://nuclide.cc/isotopes/tc-99m/), [Yttrium-90](https://nuclide.cc/isotopes/y-90/)

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