Northwest Medical to build radioisotope facility to meet half of U.S. need

Oregon-based radioisotope technology company Northwest Medical Isotopes (NWMI) announced late last week that there are plans to construct a facility for radioisotope production at the University of Missouri-owned Discovery Ridge Research Park in Columbia, Mo.

Northwest Medical Isotopes reports that the production of molybdenum-99 at the new facility could take care of 50 percent of U.S. demand for the essential medical isotope. The news comes at a time when many of the current producers are planning to close doors, including the Chalk River National Research Universal reactor in Canada.

“The United States uses half of the global supply of molybdenum-­‐99, yet we have no commercial domestic producers,” said Nicholas Fowler, chief executive officer of Northwest Medical Isotopes in an official statement. “The mission and vision of Northwest Medical Isotopes is to provide a domestic, secure, and reliable supply of molybdenum-­‐99 for medical diagnostics.”

The new facility will call on research reactors throughout the U.S. resulting in radioisotopes that are compatible with the current infrastructure and supply chain for molybdenum-99, which is the mother radioisotope for technetium-99, used in the vast majority of nuclear medicine tests.

NWMI is set to apply for construction license through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Discovery Ridge location is considered ideal by NWMI because of its affiliation with the University of Missouri and for reasons of logistics and labor resources.