Northwest Medical Isotopes to Build Moly-99 Production Facility

The Columbia Daily Tribune reported that Northwest Medical Isotopes LLC plans to build a facility at the University of Missouri’s Discovery Ridge Research Park that will produce molybdenum-99.

Moly-99 is used by radio pharmacies to produce technetium-99m, which in turn is used in “nuclear imaging studies, including medical diagnostic tests for heart, bone and kidney disease as well as cancer.”

As quoted in the market news:

Of the two ‘critical markets’ for molybdenum-99, one is Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, which is in north St. Louis County. The other company is in Boston. These companies use molybdenum-99 to produce the necessary medical radioisotope for imaging studies.

‘The United States is currently reliant upon two sources of this critical imaging tracer,’ [Nick Fowler, founder and CEO of Northwest Medical Isotopes,] said. ‘One is being decommissioned in 2016, and the other is being retooled in 2017 or 2018, meaning the U.S. supply is at significant risk. This is a huge, important diagnostic tool to cardiologists and oncologists.’

Fowler said he hopes this facility will ‘fill an anticipated void’ in the isotope production industry.