Shine to build new U.S. plant for moly-99 production

Shine Medical Technologies, a developer of medical isotopes and cancer treatment elements, intends to build a new manufacturing plant in Janesville, Wis. Plant completion is planned for 2015, with more than 100 permanent employees and potential for further employment growth.

The new plant will enable Shine to develop a domestic supply of molybdenum-99 (moly-99), a medical isotope that is used in more than 30 different diagnostic imaging procedures. Each day in the U.S. alone, more than 50,000 diagnostic nuclear medicine procedures take place that rely on moly-99, according to the Middleton, Wis.-based company.

Shine employs a manufacturing process that uses a particle accelerator, developed by Piefer, which includes technology developed by Paul DeLuca, PhD, a medical physics researcher and current provost at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The new method does not use highly enriched uranium and does not require a nuclear reactor, the company said.

Shine said its Janesville plant will produce enough moly-99 isotope for approximately 10 million diagnostic and treatment procedures each year, representing approximately one-half of the U.S. need for moly-99.

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