JANESVILLE, Wis., Oct. 7, 2019 – SHINE Medical Technologies LLC today announced the closing of a $50-million financing with funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management L.P. (“Oaktree”), a leading global investment firm with more than $120 billion under management as of June 30, 2019. The financing supports the ongoing construction of SHINE’s medical isotope production facility and its commercialization of diagnostic and therapeutic isotopes, including molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) and lutetium-177 (Lu-177).
“We are excited to welcome Oaktree to SHINE’s growing list of top-tier institutional investors,” said Greg Piefer, founder and CEO of SHINE. “Oaktree has broad expertise in complex infrastructure projects like our medical isotope facility. It joins Deerfield Management, a leading health care investment firm, as one of our key partners.
“Oaktree and Deerfield will help us deliver on SHINE’s value proposition, including the completion of our isotope production facility and the development of our therapeutics business. Their participation validates the strength of our business case, team and vision for bringing our lifesaving products to market.”
Construction of SHINE’s production facility is expected to be completed in 2021 and commercial-scale isotope production should begin in 2022. The facility will be the first of its kind, utilizing the company’s patented technology to produce Mo-99, which is used in more than 40 million procedures every year.
Chronic global shortages of medical isotopes routinely and significantly affect the diagnosis and treatment of patients around the world. SHINE’s production facility will be capable of supplying more than one-third of the global demand for Mo-99.
“SHINE is an outstanding company with a strong management team, exceptional technology and compelling story,” said Milwood Hobbs Jr., managing director of Oaktree. “The need for SHINE’s medical isotope production facility is profound, as millions of patients are affected each year by the ongoing shortage of Mo-99. Oaktree is confident SHINE will play a major role in ending that shortage and we are pleased to support SHINE’s production facility construction.”
SHINE also will commercialize Lu-177, a therapeutic isotope currently used to treat neuroendocrine cancers and showing promise for the treatment of metastatic prostate and other cancers. In May, the company entered into an agreement with the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the CAS (IOCB Prague) that provides SHINE with a global, exclusive license to a novel separation technology that it will use to produce Lu-177. The technology enables SHINE to produce non-carrier-added Lu-177, which should provide the highest therapeutic efficacy.
“Oaktree is pleased to be a partner with SHINE as it executes a growth strategy that includes commercializing therapeutic isotopes and constructing a production facility in Europe,” said Aman Kumar, senior vice president of Oaktree. “The global market for therapeutic isotopes, including Lu-177, continues to grow rapidly and SHINE is well positioned to capture significant value in that market. We are equally as excited by SHINE’s commitment to Europe, where the current isotope producers are expected to stop production during the next several years.”
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 to stage cases of 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 one percent of all Mo-99 in the world decays every hour, meaning it must be produced continuously. 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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