Quirem Medical

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.