May 9th, 2019 – Janesville, WI – SHINE Medical Technologies, Inc. (SHINE), a Wisconsin company dedicated to being the world leader in the safe, clean, affordable production of medical isotopes, broke ground today on their first medical isotope production facility in Janesville, Wisconsin. US Department of Energy (DOE) Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, Lantheus Medical Imaging President and CEO Mary Heino and Janesville City Manager Mark Freitag joined SHINE founder and CEO, Greg Piefer, and the SHINE team to celebrate the milestone.
“Construction of the Janesville production facility is a critical step toward establishing a reliable global supply of life-saving diagnostic and therapeutic isotopes for patients around the world,” said Greg Piefer, SHINE founder and CEO. “My sincere gratitude and respect to all the SHINE employees, investors, partners, and advisors who have worked so hard and for so long to reach this milestone. The strength of our team continues to build, and we are excited and confident as we move into the execution phase of our plans to become the global leader in the production of medical isotopes.”
Today’s groundbreaking follows the recent transfer of 91 acres of land from the City of Janesville located across from the Southern Wisconsin Regional Airport. Once complete, the 43,000 square foot facility will be home to eight of SHINE’s accelerator-based medical isotope production systems, capable of producing over one-third of global demand for the life-saving medical isotope, molybdenum-99 (Mo-99). SHINE currently employs over 90 people and expects to hire approximately 60 more before the completion of the facility.
“SHINE is the leader in bringing innovative molybdenum-99 production to the US,” said Mary Anne Heino, President and CEO of Lantheus. “We applaud their dedication to supplying this and other critical medical isotopes and look forward to a long and successful partnership serving the medical community.”
“I am very proud of the role NNSA has played in our public-private partnership with SHINE,” Administrator Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty said. “Not only are we assisting in saving lives, but we are promoting the elimination of material in civilian applications that might otherwise fall into an adversaries’ hands for use in a terrorist threat. DOE/NNSA looks forward to celebrating future successes together.”
“SHINE believed in Janesville at the height of the Great Recession. When futures were uncertain, they chose Janesville, planted their roots here, and have continued to grow,” said Mark Freitag, Janesville City Manager. “The City of Janesville is proud to embrace this partnership and celebrate with the SHINE team today as they take their next steps moving forward. Congratulations!”
Over 300 people came to celebrate the milestone including SHINE employees, investors, vendors, industry stakeholders, and customers. The ceremony was dedicated to the late Fred Mancheski. In 2011, Mr. Mancheski invested $10 million in the 1-year-old SHINE Medical Technologies.
Medical isotopes are radioisotopes that are used in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) is a radioisotope that decays into the diagnostic imaging agent technetium‑99m (Tc-99m). The workhorse of nuclear medicine, Tc-99m is used in more than 40 million medical imaging procedures each year, primarily in stress tests to diagnose heart disease and bone scans to stage cancer. SHINE was founded to deploy a safe, cost-effective and environmentally friendly technology to produce a variety of medical isotopes, including Mo‑99.Roughly 1% of all Mo-99 in the world decays every hour, meaning it must be continuously produced. Current production is limited to only a handful of government-owned nuclear research reactors, the majority of which are overseas.
Based in Janesville, Wisconsin, SHINE deploys its safe, cost-effective and environmentally friendly fusion technology in a stepwise approach. Its systems are used to inspect industrial components in aerospace, defense, energy and other sectors. SHINE’s proprietary medical isotope production processes create non-carrier-added lutetium-177 and are expected to create molybdenum-99. In the future, SHINE plans to scale its fusion technology to help solve one of energy’s toughest hurdles by recycling nuclear waste. Through a purpose-driven and phased approach, SHINE aims to generate fusion power to deliver clean, abundant energy that could transform life on Earth. Want to learn more about SHINE? Follow us on social media @shinefusion and sign up for our email newsletter to follow us on our journey!
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