Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
11/21/2014
A Canadian company reached a major milestone last week in its efforts to produce molybdenum-99, a medical isotope used in millions of procedures annually. Canadian Light Source, based in the province of Saskatchewan, announced the first shipment of medical isotopes produced in its dedicated linear accelerator. With Canada set to stop government spending in 2016 on the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor, one of the world’s largest suppliers of moly-99 and technetium-99m, the medical isotope industry is expecting a shortage in the market in the coming years. The shortage has attracted a string of companies looking to fill the void, with CNL being the latest to make progress in its attempt to get to market. “We are excited to be producing medical isotopes at this critical time in history,” CLS CEO Rob Lamb said in a statement. “To be part of a project that will meet the health needs of so many Canadians, that is the most gratifying element.”
CLS’s technology does not incorporate the use of a nuclear reactor to produce moly-99. Instead, the company’s process uses a particle accelerator to bombard a target made of enriched molybdenum-100 metal with high-energy X-rays, CLS said. The X-rays then knock some of the Mo-100 into Moly-99 while the remaining Mo-100 can be recycled and placed into the accelerator again. According to the company, the production process will continue to be tested until approval from Health Canada is obtained. CLS expects to begin supplying the medical isotopes by 2016.
CLS’s medical isotope facility has several backers from government and non-government organizations, including: Natural Resources Canada’s Isotope Technology Acceleration Program (ITAP), the Government of Saskatchewan, and the Prairie Isotope Production Enterprise, a non-profit corporation dedicated to developing a reliable supply of isotopes for Canadian patients. “[This] achievement is welcome news for Canadian families and our communities,” said Kelly Block, Parliamentary Secretary to the Greg Rickford, Minister of Natural Resources, in a statement. “Our investments in new technologies are supporting new milestones contributing to reliable global supplies of medical isotopes.”
In the United States, the National Nuclear Security Administration has also supported companies looking to produce a steady supply of the isotope. The isotope has typically been produced outside the U.S. by government-subsidized efforts utilizing proliferation-sensitive HEU. The NNSA instituted a cost-sharing agreement with four companies in its efforts to jump start a domestic supply. Two of the companies, GE Hitachi and B&W, involved in the NNSA’s cost-sharing agreement have halted its development due to concerns of market viability, although both the other two, SHINE and NorthStar ,expect to begin production sometime near the end of 2016/early 2017.
