Natural Resources Canada funds four projects to stimulate new sources of medical isotopes

Four existing cyclotron and linear accelerator facilities have received a total $31 million from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) to produce medical isotopes (Technetium-99m or Tc-99m) derived from non-reactor-based sources. The funding is being provided through NRCan's Non-reactor-based Isotope Supply Contribution Program (NISP) and follows R&D resulting from a $5.4-million call for proposals issued in 2009 by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (R$, June 23/09).

Using cyclotrons and linear accelerators, the projects are expected to solve scale-up and proof-of-principle issues and demonstrate the commercial production of medical isotopes by April, 2012. The federal government is seeking to secure non-reactor based sources of Tc-99m to replace medical isotopes currently produced by the aging NRU reactor in Chalk River ON. The NRU has been plagued with several unscheduled shut-downs and will be closed permanently in 2016. Once the teams report back to NRCan, the department will then approve one or more projects with a firm commercialization pathway to scale-up for production by the time the NRU is shut down.

Although not every project team received funding under the NSERC/CIHR program, at least one team member from each project was successful in that competition.

"The NSERC/CIHR program seeded teams and research studies that were successful and compelling enough to receive NRCan funding," says Tim Meyer, TRIUMF's head of strategic planning & communications.

ACSI

Advanced Cyclotron Systems Inc (ACSI) received the largest amount of funding ($11 million) and will use two pilot cyclotron facilities at the Univ of Sherbrooke's Centre Hospitalier and the Univ of Alberta to produce up to 15% of Canadian requirements. Touted as a true made-in-Canada solution, ASIC has benefitted from previous federal and province funding for the construction of its facilities. It also tapped into the NSERC/CIHR funding to conduct preliminary experiments. It envisions a pan-Canadian network of medium-energy cyclotrons "capable of supplying much of Canada's nuclear medicine isotope needs including, but not limited to, 99Tcm". Richmond BC-based ACSI is a manufacturer of high output cyclotrons for the international nuclear medicine community.

Canadian Light Source

The Canadian Light Source (CLS) received the next largest amount of NRCan funding ($10 million) and will employ a new electron linear accelerator to produce molybdenum 99 (Mo-99) — from which Tc-99m is derived — using the stable Mo-100 isotope. The accelerator produces intense x-rays which are used to irradiate a target composed of Mo-100 metal, then removing a single neutron from a few atoms of the metal. The target is then dissolved in a liquid and shipped to hospitals, where Tc-99 is separated using a radionuclide separator.

CLS partners in the project are the National Research Council which developed the photoneutron reaction process at the heart of the CLS process), the Univ of Ottawa Heart Institute, the Univ Health Network and the US-based NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes. Funding will be used to install, license and test the new accelerator and the CLS says that two or three such systems could meet Canadian demand, estimated at 5,500 medical scans daily.

TRIUMF

TRIUMF received $6 million to use its new cyclotron facility for a project jointly proposed by the BC Cancer Agency and envisions the manufacture of isotopes at multiple sites across the country. The funding will be used to develop key procedures, cyclotron modifications and large-scale isotope production protocols, as well as establishing logistics for clinical sites to serve small, medium and large patient populations. The project — dubbed CycloTech99 — will establish operating parameters for the production of Tc-99m on three different brands of medical cyclotrons on a commercial scale. Partners in the project include the Centre for Probe Development and Commercialization, a Hamilton-based developer of medical imaging probes and the Lawson Health Research Institute, London ON.

pipe

NRCan's remaining project money ($4 million) was awarded to Prairie Isotope Production Enterprise (PIPE), a not-for-profit corporation comprised of academic and private sector partners. Affiliated with the Univ of Winnipeg, partners include the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, Health Sciences Centre and Univ of Manitoba departments of medicine and radiology and Ascion Industry Inc, Pinawa MA, a developer and provider of electron beam (E-beam) treated products and services for the aerospace, healthcare and agri-food sectors.

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