[News-releases] Canadian Solution to Medical-Isotope Crisis Achieves Key Milestone

[Tim Meyer]

News Release | For Immediate Release

CANADIAN SOLUTION TO MEDICAL-ISOTOPE CRISIS DEMONSTRATES THAT CITIES COULD
PRODUCE THEIR OWN MEDICAL ISOTOPES

(Vancouver, BC) --- With Canadian-developed tools and technology, a national
team led by TRIUMF has reached a crucial milestone at the BC Cancer Agency
in developing and deploying alternatives for supplying key medical isotopes.
The team used a medical cyclotron that was designed and manufactured by
Advanced Cyclotron Systems, Inc. (ACSI) of Richmond, BC, and successfully
achieved large-scale production of technetium-99m (Tc 99m), sufficient for a
metropolitan area.

The team announced the successful ramp-up of its technology to regularly
produce enough of the critical Tc 99m isotope to supply an urban area the
size of Vancouver.  With a half-life of six hours, the isotope could also be
shipped to more remote locations.  This achievement eliminates the need for
nuclear reactors to produce isotopes, especially those that use
weapons-grade uranium, which has been the traditional approach. 

Paul Schaffer, head of TRIUMF’s Nuclear Medicine Division and principal
investigator for the project, said, “This achievement is a crucial step on
the road to meeting Canada’s isotope needs after the NRU ceases production
in 2016.  This effort required teamwork and dedication from many people.”
In addition to TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear
physics, the team includes experts at the BC Cancer Agency, the Centre for
Probe Development and Commercialization (CPDC), and Lawson Health Research
Institute.

Each year, tens of millions of medical procedures are conducted around the
world with Tc-99m, an isotope used in radiopharmaceuticals for imaging
disease in the heart, bones, and elsewhere in the body.  A small number of
ageing reactors account for most of the global capacity for isotope
production; one of them is the AECL National Research Universal (NRU)
reactor in Chalk River, Ontario.  In the past few years, these reactors have
suffered maintenance and repair outages, threatening the global supply of
medical isotopes.  
 
“Today’s milestone demonstrates the positive, tangible results being
achieved by our government’s investments in jobs and science,” said Wai
Young Member of Parliament for Vancouver South, on behalf of Canada’s
Natural Resources Minister, Joe Oliver. “Our contributions are supporting
jobs and helping advance new technologies for the production of the key
medical isotope, Tc-99m.”

“The BC Cancer Agency is very proud of our team’s time, effort, and use of
specialized research expertise to make it possible to produce large
quantities of Tc-99m with medical-cyclotron technology,” said Dr. Max
Coppes, president of the BC Cancer Agency. “This work is a great example of
the innovation that can be created through multidisciplinary research and
partnerships.”

Richard Eppich, CEO and President of ACSI, noted, “We are proud of the
TRIUMF team and of our equipment; this demonstration validates the overall
approach that Canada has been championing—that modern, high-power cyclotrons
can produce all of the essential medical isotopes needed in the best
hospitals and clinics.” 

“The approach taken by our consortium has established the feasibility of
producing appreciable quantities of Tc-99m on Canada’s existing cyclotron
network.  These same machines are also producing additional isotopes used in
a growing number of alternative imaging procedures. The net effect is that
Canada will remain on the forefront of medical-isotope technology for the
foreseeable future,” said John Valliant, Scientific Director and CEO of the
CPDC in Hamilton.

In February 2012, the TRIUMF-led team demonstrated that the production of
Tc-99m was possible on existing medical cyclotrons based in BC and Ontario.
After a year of scaling up performance and making engineering improvements
to target fabrication, control, and purification procedures, the team has
achieved its next milestone: the production of enough Tc-99m in a six-hour
overnight shift at the BC Cancer Agency Vancouver Centre to supply the
demands of a metropolitan area (roughly equivalent to 10 Curies).  The next
milestones for TRIUMF and its partners include engineering optimization and
regulatory approval. 

Michael Kovacs, imaging scientist at Lawson Health Research Institute said,
“This milestone is key to our plans to deploy this technology to the
existing medical cyclotron facilities in Canada, and hundreds more
worldwide.  The diversification of the Tc-99m supply chain with robust and
cost-effective cyclotron-based technology will reduce the dependence on the
conventional, reactor-derived supply.”

Commenting on the path forward, TRIUMF’s director Nigel Lockyer said,
“Having cleared this technical hurdle, we are well on our way to assembling
the right team to make a competitive proposal to join the BC supply chain
for medical isotopes such as technetium-99m.  I look forward to working with
existing and new partners, including ACSI, in making this possible.” 

The recent breakthroughs have been supported by the Isotope Technology
Acceleration Program (ITAP) of Natural Resources Canada.  Initial research
on cyclotron production of Tc-99m was supported by Canada’s National
Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Canadian Institutes for
Health Research through a research grant awarded to the University of
British Columbia to support a team led by Dr. François Bénard and Dr. Thomas
J. Ruth, from the BC Cancer Agency and TRIUMF, respectively.  

For more information and media resources, please see
http://www.triumf.ca/nrcan-isotopes.  

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Timothy I. Meyer, Ph.D.
Head, Strategic Planning & Communications
TRIUMF -- Accelerating Science for Canada | 
    Un accélérateur de la démarche scientifique canadienne
4004 Wesbrook Mall | Vancouver, BC  V6T 2A3 | CANADA
Tel: 604.222.7674
Fax: 604.222.3791
Mobile (w/call fwd): 604.235.1925
E-mail: tmeyer at triumf.ca
WWW: http://www.triumf.ca
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