Polish Investment Firm Increases Shares in Perma-Fix Medical

Astoria Capital SA, a Polish investment firm, increased its shares in Perma-Fix Medical, a subsidiary of Perma-Fix, by approximately seven percent, Reuters reported yesterday. The increase in stocks would raise the investment firm’s share in the company to 10 percent, an indication of its belief in Perma-Fix’s ability to leverage its technetium-99m production technology. Perma-Fix is currently trying to raise funding for its subsidiary, especially in the European market, to move the technology through the regulatory hurdles so it can begin production of the medical isotope used in millions of medical procedures per year. Perma-Fix did not return calls for comment yesterday. 

 

Perma-Fix believes it will be able to produce a product much cheaper than its competitors due to its production procedure that does not use any high or low enriched uranium, a large cost added to any production process. Perma-Fix expects filing for Food and Drug Administration approval by the end of the year. With Canada set to stop government spending in 2016 on the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor, one of the world’s largest suppliers of moly-99 and technetium-99m, the medical isotope industry is expecting a shortage in the market in the coming years. This shortage has led to a slew of startups—eight to nine companies have already sent the Nuclear Regulatory Commission letters of intent to submit construction authorization licenses for a potential Moly-99 production facility— looking to fill the lucrative void.