Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
5/29/2015
Perma-Fix Environmental Services is looking into ways to leverage its medical isotope resin technology in its core business of radioactive waste treatment, Perma-Fix Chief Financial Officer Ben Naccarato said this week during a presentation at the Marcum Microcap Conference. The company originally developed the technology for technetium-99m production, but is now looking at other potential uses. Naccarato indicated that the company has filed for additional patents for the resin technology following the successful patent application for medical isotope production earlier this year. “In 2015, we received our patent for the resin,” Naccarato said. “We have other patents that are underway. This resin can be used in the environmental field. It can be used for many other purposes, for treating waste streams.”
The company does not have a specific project in mind for the technology at this time, but Perma-Fix sees the technology as another “tool in its tool box,” according to Perma-Fix Senior Vice President Renee Echols. “Our patented resin can be customized to be isotope specific for different radioactive metals,” Echols said. “It could be helpful for treating wastewaters with heavy metals – for instance wastewaters created during fracking. We think there could be some future uses especially for technetium, but there is no current project at this point. Like other treatment technologies, it is another tool in our toolbox to address problematic waste streams.”
Perma-Fix Process More Cost Efficient, Naccarato Says
Naccarato, meanwhile, pitched to potential investors that due to the company’s unique production process, Perma-Fix offers the best solution to fill the Tc-99m market void. “Nobody is doing it without uranium like we are," Naccarato said. “There is one company that is not using uranium like we are, but they are using a cyclotron process that is different from ours. We believe ours is still more reliable and cheaper.” He added, “Many of these other companies though are doing it with low-enriched uranium. They are doing it with uranium so that is requiring expense reactors to be built as part of their cost structure.”
Perma-Fix feels confident that its Mo-99 production technology is well positioned to take advantage of the impending medical isotope industry void. 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. 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.
