SHINE Technologies, Janesville, Wis., got $35 million through a cooperative agreement with the National Nuclear Security Administration to help produce the molybdenum-99 medical isotope in the U.S. without relying on highly enriched uranium, the agency announced this week.
This was the third of four agreements planned under a funding opportunity Congress ordered the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to establish in 2012. The aim is to start commercial production by 2023, the agency said in a press release.
SHINE is working on a stateside production plant in Wisconsin and also has been shopping for production facilities overseas, including in Europe and Asia. The company picked a Netherlands facility for European production this year.
Historically, most molybdenum-99 in the U.S. has come from foreign manufacturers using U.S. origin highly enriched uranium. That channel remains open for now, although the federal government recently announced it would hear comments about whether to keep the transatlantic uranium-molybdenum pipeline open.
The international molybdenum-99 trade has been fruitful for Belgium’s Institute for Radioelements near Brussels, which bending to global trends has eyed a switch to low-enriched uranium feedstock from highly enriched uranium.
Proponents of domestic molybdenum-99 production have criticized the imports as a means of punishing would-be U.S. producers.
Molybdenum-99 is the parent isotope for technetium-99m, a gamma-emitter used as an imaging aid for some medical diagnoses.
