Nordion, a subsidiary of Sterigenics International LLC, announced late last week that it entered into a partnership with General Atomics and the University of Missouri Research Reactor Center (MURR) to create a dependable source of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99).

“We are pretty confident we have a better understanding than anyone about what it takes to get it to successful commercial production,” Tom Burnett, president of medical isotopes at Nordion, told DOTmed News of the new partnership. “We looked at all of the options available and we established clearly in our own minds that this combination of strengths will result in the best source of stable supply.”

According to Nordion — the first to bring Mo-99 to market 40 years ago — General Atomics TRIGA nuclear reactor is the most widely used in the world. Currently, 66 have been sold and are in use or under construction in 24 countries.
Burnett said that this partnership will create the “best and most reliable commercial supply of medical isotopes for the global health community,” which is more important than ever since other nuclear reactors are being decommissioned or shut down for maintenance.

Mo-99 is the main isotope required in the production of technetium-99m (Tc-99m), which is used in over 80 percent of all nuclear medicine procedures. Every day over 50,000 patients in the U.S. and tens of thousands of patients internationally rely on these medical isotopes to get the imaging results they need.

Nordion is currently obtaining Mo-99 from the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor in Chalk River, Ontario, which is run by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. Originally, NRU was set to cease production of Mo-99 in November 2016 but the Canadian government recently extended that to March 31, 2018 because of the current shortage.

The project is currently underway and Nordion expects a routine supply of Mo-99 in 2017. “We think that this new source of supply will go a long way to reducing the risk of isotope shortages thereafter,” said Burnett.

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