Nuc med isotope supply: Perfect storm sends Covidien to cover
Covidien (NYSE:COV), a major U.S. supplier of the molybdenum-99 radioisotope that produces technetium, is preparing to take shelter from the perfect storm now gathering over the nuclear medicine community. The healthcare company will halt processing of Mo-99 for five days in late March, about the time all five reactors that make the radioisotope are offline. Just one reactor is now operating, the High Flux Reactor in Petten, the Netherlands. When it goes down in March for a half-year of maintenance, only the reactor run by Atomic Energy of Canada at Chalk River, Ontario, has a near-term chance of returning to service to replenish the pipeline. And that is anything but certain. AECL raised doubts last week about whether it can return the aging Canadian reactor to service as scheduled in March, as repairs are taking longer than expected.
The Chalk River reactor has been offline eight months. Canadian regulators shut the reactor down for repairs last May after workers discovered a leak. It was the latest in a decade of intermittent problems that have grown more difficult and time-consuming to fix.
The silver lining in these clouds is the ongoing development of a new technology that could supply the Mo-99 radioisotope needed by the nuclear medicine community. The aqueous homogenous nuclear reactor technology being developed by Babcock & Wilcox relies on low-enriched uranium and promises to produce only 1% of the radioactive waste that accompanies the production of Mo-99 in a conventional reactor. This week the company, a subsidiary of McDermott International (NYSE:MDR), announced receiving $9 million in funding for the alternative Mo-99 technology, which the company is developing jointly with Covidien. Adding credence to the Babcock & Wilcox effort is the award of a publicly undisclosed amount of funding to GE and Hitachi, also to develop technology capable of making Mo-99 from low-enriched uranium.
Funding both these efforts is the National Nuclear Security Administration, which Congress established a decade ago to enhance national security through the military application of nuclear science. Supplying a low-enriched uranium radioisotope for medical use falls within the purview of the funding agency because the highly enriched form of this element has obvious implications for the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and terrorism. Considering that no other government agencies have stepped up to deflect what could turn into a catastrophic loss of medical imaging capacity if the spotty performance of nuclear reactors continues, the nuc med community is lucky to have NNSA on its side.
News Archives
Technetium supply to tighten further, Jan. 20, 2010
Collaboration begins on U.S. Mo-99 production facility, Jan. 28, 2009
Government punch line defines nuclear medicine nightmare, May 28, 2009
Fear of nuclear terrorism lurks behind molybdenum supply debate, June 3, 2008
Crystal ball shows tripling of nuc sales in Europe
Amid the hand-wringing over the supply of an isotope critical to the practice of nuclear medicine, the prediction that demand for scanners that depend on this isotope will grow steadily in Europe over the next several years comes as something of a surprise. But in its newly released report, “Europe Nuclear Imaging Equipment: Market Analysis and Opportunity Assessment,” GlobalData does exactly that. The market research firm forecasts 16% growth in each of the next seven years until annual sales of nuclear medicine equipment reach $1.4 billion in 2015—about three times the volume of sales achieved in 2008. Germany and Italy will contribute 33% and 25% respectively to the total nuclear imaging equipment market.
Not all this growth will be driven by SPECT or SPECT/CT, which rely heavily on technetium. Included in the mix are PET/CT scanners. All nuc med systems, however, will benefit from increasing numbers of cancer patients across Europe, technological advances, and improvements in the quality of care, according to the report. Sixty percent of the European demand for new units is expected to come from first-time buyers.
GE, Siemens, and Philips will continue to dominate the European marketplace for SPECT- and PET-based systems. GE (NYSE: GE) will lead the pack with 36% share, followed by Siemens (NYSE: SI) and Philips (NYSE: PHG), each with 28%, according to GlobalData.
