Molybdenum-99 (or Mo-99), is the most-used diagnostic medical isotope in the world, powering 40 million patient scans each year. Nearly half of those scans, critical for detecting life-threatening conditionslike heart disease and cancer, are performed in North America. At SHINE, wehave developed a revolutionary way to produce Mo-99 without using nuclear reactors.
Molybdenum-99 is the parent isotope of technetium-99m (Tc-99m), a short-lived, gamma-emitting isotope used in about 85% of all nuclear medicine diagnostic scans. The vast majority of the world’s supply comes from several aging nuclear reactors, none of which are in North America. Mo-99 has a 66-hour half-life, so about one-third of the product is lost during cross-continental transportation.
We plan to produce molybdenum-99 in the United States and Europe to bolster the supply chain and help solve chronic shortages of this critical medicine. Our proprietary fusion-driven medical isotope production process will not require a nuclear reactor and uses a recyclable liquid low-enriched-uranium target solution. We believe this will provide a safer, greener, more commercially viable method of supplying Mo-99 to the world.
Our production facility, The Chrysalis, has a goal of creating the largest dedicated medical isotope production capacity in the world. At full capacity, we’re planning to produce nearly half of the global demand for molybdenum-99. And our Mo-99 has been designed from the ground up to be compatible with the existing medical isotope supply chain for ease of customer use. A second facility planned in Veendam, the Netherlands, is expected to have a similar capacity.
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