The Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded $10 million in Phase II funding to SHINE Medical Technologies as part of the agency’s program to promote a domestic supply of molybdenum-99 (mo-99).
The funding is part of a cooperative agreement, which involved a 50-50 cost-sharing arrangement between SHINE and DOE. The recent award brings the total value of the agreement to $50 million, with DOE contributing $25 million.
Mo-99 decays into technetium-99m, which is used in imaging procedures for cancer, heart disease, bone disease, and kidney disease. With Canada’s shutdown of the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor in Chalk River, Ontario, in November, the medical isotope industry fears a shortage in the market in the coming years, as the NRU is one of the world’s largest suppliers of the isotope. DOE established the program to help establish a domestic commercial supply of the isotope.
The funding will help SHINE to design and construct a radioisotope production facility in Janesville, Wis. The company received a construction permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in February following a four-year process of safety and environmental data collection and review. SHINE hopes to begin production at the $100 million facility in 2019.
“We are grateful to the DOE/NNSA for its financial and technical support through the construction permit approval process, and for its continued commitment to SHINE as we take the next steps toward securing access to isotopes critical to the accurate diagnosis of disease,” SHINE CEO Greg Piefer said in a statement. “Their assistance has contributed to our success so far, and the on-going partnership will help ensure the timely startup of our production facility—a national asset that will provide life-saving materials for a billion people over its lifetime.”
These cooperative agreements are part of DOE’s larger effort to reduce, and eliminate when possible, the use of nuclear weapon-usable highly enriched uranium (HEU) in civilian applications. DOE/NNSA holds four cooperative agreements with three commercial entities: SHINE, NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes LLC, and General Atomics.
NNSA spokeswoman Francie Israeli said SHINE is developing an accelerator with low-enriched uranium fission technology. NorthStar is developing two non-HEU-based technical pathways – an accelerator technology and a neutron capture technology. General Atomics is developing an LEU target fission technology.
Each project can earn up to $25 million in federal funding. The department funds each agreement incrementally and expects to fully fund all four projects by the end of fiscal 2018, according to Israeli.
