Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
3/14/2014
A Dutch medical isotope company will not meet its goal of shifting to the use of low enriched uranium for the production of molybdenum-99 by the 2015 target date, according to a meeting held this week with White House officials. Mallinckrodt confirmed to White House officials that it would not meet its deadline, and would actually need to continue imports of highly enriched uranium “through 2015 and 2016,” according to Roy Brown, Mallinckrodt’s director of strategic alliances. Problems with the production of the medical isotope using LEU would create a shortage, Dutch Foreign Ministry official Piet de Klerk said in a letter to the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project late last month. “In the past two years European industries involved have made, and continue to make, significant progress towards this goal,” de Klerk said. “However, some unforeseen complications have occurred, mainly, in the LEU radiochemistry process. These complications do not prevent a LEU based production as such, but are hindering a production on approximately the same scale as today with HEU. That would seriously undermine supply of radioisotopes to patients in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.”
From the NPPP’s perspective, this failure to meet the agreed upon deadline is “a major embarrassment to the host country of the upcoming 2014 Nuclear Security Summit,” Alan Kuperman, coordinator of the NPPP. During the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, in cooperation with the United States, reaffirmed their determination to support conversion of European medical isotope production to non-HEU-based processes by 2015. “It is a huge embarrassment and sets a terrible example when the summit host violates its own pledge,” said Kuperman. “‘Do as we say, not as we do’ is not an effective foreign policy.”
Domestic Production Making Strides
While the news from the Dutch is a setback to the program, news from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Regulatory Information Conference this week suggests movement towards construction of domestic facilities using LEU for medical isotopes is gaining momentum. “The NRC has received its first construction permit application,” NRC project manager Steven Lynch said during a technical panel session. “There has been significant interest in Moly-99 production over the last six years. Today, we have received eight letters of intent from potential applicants that have indicated their intention to submit construction permits applications and license application. Within the next year, the NRC expects to receive one to two additional construction permit applications.”
The National Nuclear Security Administration has been helping to jump start domestic production of medical isotopes through a cost-sharing cooperative agreement with four companies to develop technology to produce Moly-99, the medical isotope used in 16 million medical procedures annually in the United States. The isotope has typically been produced outside the U.S. by government-subsidized efforts utilizing proliferation-sensitive HEU. 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 Shine Medical Technologies has submitted a construction permit application to the NRC during 2013.
