SNM panel finds no easy path to expand molybdenum-99 supplies

July 11, 2008 SNM panel finds no easy path to expand molybdenum-99 supplies James Brice -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A draft report from an SNM expert panel has found no quick fix for the medical imaging community's molybdenum-99m supply problems. Its results suggest that North American healthcare providers will continue to depend on Canada's National Research Universal reactor in Chalk River, ON, for most of the precursor isotope of technetium-99m for several years as plans for alternative sources move toward implementation. The task force noted that the last domestic supplier of Mo-99 isotope closed down in 1989, forcing U.S. nuclear medicine service to rely on sources in Canada, Belgium, and South Africa for the nuclear reactor-generated tracer. The May 2008 cancellation of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.'s Multipurpose Applied Physics Lattice Experiment (MAPLE) project — a research reactor complex designed as the next-generation source of Mo-99 — has amplified the need for an alternative domestic source, according to working group.The SNM task force plans to initiate discussions with organizations that produce or could produce FDA-approved medical radioisotopes. It will also examine the feasibility of various Mo-99 production options including industry consortia, private/public partnerships, and government funding. It anticipates that the results of the national election in November will also ultimately have a bearing on how the federal government responds to the isotope supply issue. Its members are SNM president Robert Atcher, Ph.D.; Roy Brown of the Council on Radionuclides and Radiopharmaceuticals in Moraga, CA; Jeffrey Norenberg, Ph.D., chair of the radiopharmaceutical sciences program at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque; Wolfgang Runde, Ph.D., isotope program manager at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; and Wynn Volker, Ph.D., director of the Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Institute at the University of Missouri in Columbia.The task force's preliminary findings were based on discussions with AECL officials and sources that have actual plans in place or the technical know-how to develop new Mo-99 production capabilities. The following groups represent from 80% to 90% of the organizations having a realistic chance of helping to solve the Mo-99 problem, according to the task force.

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