Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
6/19/2015
Argonne National Laboratory this week announced that it has successfully validation a key component of SHINE Medical’s molybdenum-99 production process. Argonne successfully demonstrated the production, separation and purification of Mo-99 from SHINE’s liquid target, known as Mini-SHINE, which will be used in the company’s production process, further validating SHINE’s process. “This key demonstration proves that SHINE’s innovative target and processing chemistry produces Mo-99 that has the same purity as what customers are purchasing today,” SHINE CEO Greg Piefer said in a statement. “It is essentially a pilot demonstration of one of the two novel parts of our plant. Argonne has worked tirelessly to provide this demonstration, which otherwise would not be available until after the plant is operational.” According to the company, the demonstration proves that the chemistry of the liquid target holds up from plant-relevant irradiation conditions through purification of the Mo-99 to current industry standards.
Los Alamos National Laboratory previously found near-complete recovery of the Mo-99 from SHINE’s liquid target, and that the yield did not change when the target solution was recycled, the company said. The United States, through the National Nuclear Security Administration, has instituted a cost-sharing agreement with SHINE and NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes to help jump start the domestic production of Mo-99. Both companies expect to begin production sometime near the end of 2016 or early 2017, depending on how quickly they can navigate the regulatory process.
With Canada set to stop government spending in 2016 on the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor, one of the world’s largest suppliers of molybdenum-99 and technetium-99m, the medical isotope industry is expecting a shortage in the market in the coming years, opening a potentially lucrative opportunity to satisfy the market for the medical isotope used in millions of procedures annually. NRU’s anticipated shutdown has led to a slew of startups looking to fill the lucrative medical isotope void—eight-to-nine companies have already sent the Nuclear Regulatory Commission letters of intent to submit construction authorization licenses for a potential Mo-99 production facility. Most of the companies have a timeline to reach production capabilities between late 2016 and early 2017.
