The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration said Wednesday it is gearing up to provide another $40 million in cooperative agreements for production projects for the medical isotope molybdenum-99.
That would be on top of $100 million pledged in recent years to four projects led by three companies: NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, SHINE Medical Technologies, and General Atomics. In each case, the NNSA would provide $25 million, to be matched by the recipient.
However, General Atomics as of April has officially canceled its project following the withdrawal of partner Nordion, officials from the NNSA and Nuclear Regulatory Commission said during a Mo-99 stakeholders meeting in Arlington, Va.
The agency’s goal is to ensure a steady domestic supply of the isotope, for which the United States currently has no production capacity, and to deter use of highly enriched uranium that could pose a nuclear proliferation threat.
The new cooperative agreements would again be a 50-50 cost-sharing arrangement, with the NNSA aiming to provide $10 million each to four projects.
The new funding opportunity announcement is being drafted and should be published around July, according to Crystal Trujillo, the NNSA’s domestic program manager for its Mo-99 program. The opportunity will be open for 30 calendar days.
“Each applicant must demonstrate its ability to scale up commercial production and the ability to produce 3,000 6-day curies of moly per week,” Trujillo said.
Any company would have to forecast the point at which it could reach that production level, and how it would get there, the NNSA said.
Negotiations for funding awards should begin around January of next year, Trujillo said.
While the major players in U.S. Mo-99 production development were at the half-day meeting, General Atomics did not present. The San Diego-based technology company had partnered with Nordion and the University of Missouri Research Reactor on an NNSA-backed project to use selective gas extraction technology for Mo-99 production. But Nordion withdrew from the project in early April, shortly before announcing the sale of its medical isotope business to BWXT.
General Atomics “notified us in April of this year that they would be terminating that, and we’re in the process of closing out that cooperative agreement,” said Pete Karcz, an NNSA senior program manager.
