SHINE Medical Technologies said Tuesday it has secured a $150 million financing pledge from a New York City-based healthcare investment firm to fund construction of its Wisconsin medical isotope manufacturing facility.
Deerfield Management Co. will provide the money in several installments, dependent on SHINE achieving select milestones, according to a press release. SHINE has received the first tranche of funding, spokeswoman Katrina Pitas said by email. She did not discuss details of the milestones the company must meet to continue receiving funding.
With the funding in hand, SHINE expects next spring to begin construction of its 43,000-square-foot main molybdenum-99 production facility in the city of Janesville. The Deerfield money will also help SHINE prepare for commercial levels of output of the isotope, which it hopes to achieve by 2022.
The company will first need an operations license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “We are currently developing the NRC operation license application and expect to submit it to the NRC in the first half of next year,” Pitas stated. “The NRC has estimated that once the application is docketed, its review will take 18-24 months.”
SHINE will use accelerator-based neutron source technology to produce the isotope, rather than traditional nuclear reactor-based sourcing. Molybdenum-99 decays into technetium-99m, which is used in 40 million medical procedures each year around the world, including diagnosing various cancers.
The United States not had a commercial production source for the isotope since 1989, but SHINE and several rivals aim to re-establish this capacity. SHINE says it will ultimately be able to provide one-third of the global need for molybdenum-99.
In the press release, the company noted it had previously secured a separate $30 million in private investment for its project. The money will also go toward construction and production preparations, Pitas said.
SHINE to date has secured $250 million for its project, the spokeswoman told the Wisconsin State Journal. The cost of the production plant is not being released.
