While the worldwide shortage of Technetium Tc99m is expected to continue into the foreseeable future, it has eased just a bit. Lantheus Medical Imaging, Inc., recently announced that it has received an additional supply of molybdenum-99, Technetium’s parent isotope, as a result of recent agreement between the Institute for Radioelements in Fleurus, Belgium, and the Nuclear Research Institute in Rez, Czech Republic.
The Czech LVR-15 research reactor, which was built in the mid-1950s and modernized in the 1980s, joins a list of research reactors from Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa, Belgium, France, Poland, Australia, and Argentina that serves as the global supply chain for medical isotopes.
As the recent shutdowns of the reactors in Canada and the Netherlands have shown, any break in the supply chain can cause serious shortages of radioisotopes for radiologists and clinicians across the globe. While these reactors are down and others are taken offline for routine maintenance in coming months, the Belgian-Czech agreement should help Lantheus provide a regular stream of radioisotopes to its customers.
(Source: Press Release)