Canadian Light Source makes first shipment of medical isotopes from linear accelerator

Kathy Mahdoubi | | Health Imaging | Molecular Imaging

The Saskatoon, Canada-based Canadian Light Source has reached a major benchmark in the company’s Medical Isotope Project by shipping the first major supply of isotopes, the company announced Friday. Health Canada has yet to approve it, but, with further testing, this technology could begin supplying medical isotopes to medical facilities in the region by 2016.

The linear accelerator technology harnesses x-ray technology by bombarding molybdenum-100 targets in order to bump a neutron out of some of the atoms to produce Moly-99, the parent isotope of technetium-99m—the most-used medical isotope in the world. Once decayed, residual Moly-100 metals can be recycled into additional targets.

This production line is vastly different from conventional means of producing medical isotopes by radiating highly enriched uranium targets in one of a handful of old research reactors, including Canada’s Chalk River facility, which will no longer produce medical isotopes sometime in 2016.

“We are excited to be producing medical isotopes at this critical time in history,” said Rob Lamb, Canadian Light Source CEO, in a press release. “To be part of a project that will meet the health needs of so many Canadians, that is the most gratifying element.”

Canadian Light Source officials say that two to three accelerator systems with the power of the MIP facility could produce enough medical isotopes for Canada’s demand.

This project was made possible by Saskatoon government funding, the Natural Resources Canada’s Isotope Technology Acceleration Program and the Prairie Isotope Production Enterprise, a non-profit corporation in Manitoba, Canada.

“Today’s achievement is welcome news for Canadian families and our communities,” said Kelly Block, parliamentary secretary to the Honorable Greg Rickford, minister of natural resources, in the release. “Our investments in new technologies are supporting new milestones contributing to reliable global supplies of medical isotopes.”

 

Kathy Mahdoubi

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