3

Current Molybdenum-99 Supply

As of July 2017, almost all molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) for medical use was being produced by irradiating solid uranium targets in the six research reactors listed below (available production capacity of the reactors is shown in parentheses) and illustrated in Figure 3.1.

• BR-2, Belgium (7,800 six-day Ci/week)
• HFR, Netherlands (6,200 six-day Ci/week)
• LVR-15, Czech Republic (3,000 six-day Ci/week)
• Maria, Poland (2,700 six-day Ci/week)
• OPAL, Australia (2,150 six-day Ci/week)
• SAFARI-I, South Africa (3,000 six-day Ci/week)

All reactors except OPAL and SAFARI-I (since August 2017) irradiate highly enriched uranium (HEU) targets. Mo-99 produced in these reactors is supplied to the global market by four companies in Australia (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation [ANSTO]), Belgium (Institut National des Radioelements [IRE]), Netherlands (Curium), and South Africa (NTP Radioisotopes). In addition to these reactors, smaller amounts of Mo-99 are produced in other reactors, for example, the RBT-6 and RBT-10a (available production capacity is 1,000 six-day Ci/week) and WWR-c (350 six-day Ci/week) in Russia, and the RA-3 reactor (400 six-day Ci/week) in Argentina. The Russian reactors irradiate HEU targets, and the Argentinian reactor irradiates low-enriched uranium (LEU) targets.

All Mo-99 suppliers except those in Russia are either in the final stages of converting production from using HEU to LEU targets or already produce Mo-99 using LEU targets.

Two irradiation facilities, the OSIRIS reactor in France and the NRU reactor in Canada, contributed to the Mo-99 supply until December 2015 and October 2016, respectively. The OSIRIS reactor permanently stopped operating; the NRU reactor is kept in hot standby and could resume production until March 2018 to support global Mo-99 supply and avoid Mo-99 shortages.

The following sections summarize information that was provided at the symposium on the countries and companies that supply Mo-99 produced in currently operating reactors.

AUSTRALIA

Mr. Michael Druce represented the Australian company ANSTO located in Lucas Heights, a suburb of Sydney. ANSTO is a statutory body of the Australian government and produces Mo-99 commercially by processing LEU targets. This approach was adopted first at the HIFAR reactor and, since 2007, at the OPAL reactor. ANSTO can produce about 2,150 six-day Ci/week of Mo-99 (up from 1,200 six-day Ci/week in 2016). ANSTO’s production capacity is expected to increase to 2,650 six-day Ci/week in the fourth quarter of 2017 upon commissioning of the new processing facility, which is part of the ANSTO Nuclear Medicine (ANM) project, and further increase to 3,500 six-day Ci/week in the first quarter of 2018. ANSTO also produces I-131 (by irradiating tellurium targets) and other isotopes used in nuclear medicine.

ANM is a joint initiative from the Australian government and ANSTO dedicated to commercial Mo-99 production and will be operated as a subsidiary of ANSTO. An advantage of the ANM facility is that it can maximize production and supply during critical demand periods, typically over weekends and in response to reactor outages.

Mr. Druce discussed several challenges that ANSTO faces as the company gradually expands Mo-99 production. These challenges involved

1. Ensuring that expansion of Mo-99 production did not affect other reactor activities;
2. Developing storage solutions for the additional intermediate-level radioactive waste (see Chapter 4 for a description of ANSTO’s long-term radioactive waste management solution); and
3. Ensuring that emissions of noble gases such as xenon are maintained at regulatory-permissible levels.

BELGIUM

Mr. Jean-Michel Vanderhofstadt represented the privately owned Belgian company IRE, located in Fleurus. IRE can produce 3,600 six-day Ci/week of Mo-99 (up from 2,500 six-day Ci/week in 2016) by processing HEU targets irradiated at HFR, BR2, and LVR-15 reactors. IRE also produces I-131 through fission and is the exclusive supplier of Xe-133 to the U.S. market.

IRE began its LEU conversion project in 2010 and anticipates completing it in 2018 after it resolves the technical challenges it faces during conversion. It estimates Mo-99 production capacity after conversion to be about 3,500 six-day Ci/week. IRE has not yet received approvals from drug regulators to sell LEU-sourced Mo-99. IRE plans to convert I-131 production to LEU after the Mo-99 conversion is complete, possibly in 2018, and to convert Xe-133 production in 2019.

NETHERLANDS

Mr. Roy Brown represented Curium, a new company created in April 2017 following the merging of IBA Molecular and Mallinckrodt Nuclear Medicine LLC. Curium produces Mo-99 at the Petten site in Netherlands. It can produce 4,500 six-day Ci/week (up from 3,500 six-day Ci/week in 2016) by processing HEU targets irradiated at HFR, BR-2, and Maria reactors. Curium’s production capacity is expected to increase to 5,000 six-day Ci/week by the end of 2017.

Curium began its LEU conversion project in 2010 and anticipates completing it by the end of 2017. During that time the company has resolved several technical challenges and has received approval from various drug regulators to sell LEU-sourced Mo-99 (see Chapter 4 for more information provided by Mr. Brown).

SOUTH AFRICA

Mr. Gavin Ball represented the South African company NTP, a subsidiary of the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation located in Pelindaba (west of Pretoria). NTP can produce 3,500 six-day Ci/week (up from 3,000 six-day Ci/week in 2016) by processing LEU and HEU (45 percent uranium enrichment) targets irradiated at SAFARI-I. NTP has been increasing Mo-99 production from LEU targets each year: it was 38 percent in 2014; 47 percent in 2015; 77 percent in 2016, and 95-100 percent in 2017. Production has been solely LEU-sourced since August 2017. NTP also produces I-131 via fission.

NTP began its LEU conversion project in 2008 and was the first large-scale producer to achieve routine production of Mo-99 from LEU sources in 2011. The company has regulatory approvals to sell LEU-based I-131.

RUSSIA

Dr. Vladimir Risovaniy (Rosatom Headquarters), Mr. Alexey Vakulenko (JSC Isotope), Dr. Oleg Kononov (Karpov Institute), Dr. Victor Skuridin (Tomsk Polytechnic University), and Dr. Evgeniy Nesterov (Tomsk Polytechnic University) presented information on Russian institutions and their respective Mo-99/Tc-99m production and supply.

Mo-99/Tc-99 in Russia is produced in four facilities:

• Karpov Research Institute of Physical Chemistry (Karpov Institute) in Obninsk, Kaluga Region. Mo-99 at Karpov is produced by irradiating HEU targets at the WWR-c reactor.
• Research Institute of Atomic Reactors (RIAR) in Dimitrovgrad. Mo-99 at RIAR is produced by irradiating HEU targets at the RBT-6 and RBT-10a reactors.
• The Khlopin Radium Institute in St. Petersburg. Mo-99 at the Khlopin Radium Institute is produced via neutron capture [reaction: ⁹⁸Mo(n,γ)⁹⁹Mo] by irradiating Mo-98 targets in the RBMK-reactor¹ at Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant.

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¹ Russian for high-power channel-type reactor. Currently, there are 11 reactors of this type in Russia located at the Leningrad, Kursk, and Smolensk nuclear power plants.

• The Nuclear Physics Research Institute at Tomsk Polytechnic University, in Tomsk, Siberian Federal District. Mo-99 at Tomsk Polytechnic University is also produced via neutron capture. Production at this facility was suspended in 2015 and is expected to resume in 2018.

The Karpov Institute, RIAR, and the Khlopin Radium Institute are enterprises owned and operated by the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation, Rosatom. Mo-99 produced in these institutes is distributed to the domestic market to meet current demand estimated to be around 100 six-day Ci/week and since 2012 to the international market (Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East) by the joint stock company JSC-Isotope, also a Rosatom enterprise. In 2016, JSC Isotope supplied about one-third of Rosatom’s production capacity (about 400 six-day Ci/week) and estimates its global market share to be about 5 percent.

Khlopin Radium Institute and Tomsk Polytechnic University supply the Mo-99/Tc-99m produced only to the domestic market and do not currently have additional production capacity for exports. At Khlopin Radium Institute, a stationary technetium generator is used to elute Tc-99m for distribution to the St. Petersburg area. Supply of Mo-99 from Khlopin Radium Institute is equivalent to about 10 six-day Ci/week. Supply from Tomsk Polytechnic University, which is also about 10 six-day Ci/week, is distributed to the Siberian, Ural, and Far East regions.

Russian experts from the Rosatom enterprises were asked to present on activities related to conversion from irradiating HEU to LEU targets for Mo-99 production but they chose not to do so. Instead they offered some remarks on the topic during the symposium discussion sessions.

Mr. Risovaniy noted that Russia, along with all other countries that were represented at the symposium, realizes that to enter the global Mo-99 market by selling uranium fission-based Mo-99, it needs to convert to LEU-sourced production by irradiating LEU targets. However, Rosatom has chosen not to prioritize conversion. He explained that although the company has the technical expertise to successfully convert, conversion is not an economical solution for Russia to reach the goal of capturing a large share of the Mo-99 market. This is due to the large costs of converting and maintaining LEU-sourced Mo-99 production and the challenge to recover these costs in the spirit of full cost recovery (see more on full cost recovery in Chapter 7). Rosatom is focusing on new projects that rely on alternative technologies for producing Mo-99 without HEU (see Chapter 6). Mr. Risovaniy added that if these projects fail for technical or other reasons, Rosatom may then decide to focus on conversion to LEU-sourced production at RIAR and the Karpov Institute. He did not provide an estimate of how long he thinks it would take RIAR and Karpov to convert their reactors to irradiating LEU targets, if they chose to focus on conversion. Other symposium participants highlighted that experience from Curium, and NTP showed that conversion is a longer process than anticipated. As noted earlier in this proceedings, it took existing global Mo-99 producers about 6-7 years to convert, and one global producer (IRE) is still resolving technical challenges.

Dr. Kononov confirmed that explorations related to conversion from irradiating HEU to LEU targets at the WWR-c reactor are proceeding at a slow pace by performing experiments to test a conversion plan. He also noted that the Karpov Institute is working toward expanding Mo-99 production capacity at the WWR-c reactor to 700 six-day Ci/week by changing the current uranium target configuration and chemical processing. Dr. Kononov estimated that this project could take about 2 years to complete.

ARGENTINA

Dr. Pablo Cristini represented the Argentinian government agency National Atomic Energy Commission (Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica [CNEA]), which is in charge of the country’s nuclear energy research and development. Argentina has been producing Mo-99 for medical applications since 1985 at the RA-3 reactor designed and constructed by CNEA.² It was the first country to convert its small-scale Mo-99 production to LEU in 2002 and has been routinely producing about 400 six-day Ci/week for several years. Production at RA-3 covers national demand and about a third of Brazil’s demand. RA-3 also produces other medical isotopes and can produce xenon-133.

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² Dr. Cristini noted that CNEA has transferred, jointly with INVAP, the technology for fission radioisotope production with LEU to Egypt, Australia, Algeria and, more recently, to India.