An international collaboration between Bruce Power, Isogen (a Kinectrics and Framatome company) and ITM Isotope Technologies Munich (ITM), announced the commencement of commercial production of lutetium-177.
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The announcement was celebrated at ITM’s headquarters in Munich, Germany, along with representatives of the partnership organizations during a trade mission with Vic Fedeli, Ontario’s Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.
This milestone was achieved following completion of final commissioning and regulatory approval from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and is the culmination of a multi-year project to install a novel Isotope Production System (IPS) in Bruce Power’s Unit 7.
It marks the first-of-its-kind achievement of a commercial power reactor with additional capability to commercially produce short-lived medical isotopes.
The IPS will provide reliable, industrial-scale production of lutetium-177, a medical isotope used for targeted cancer therapeutics. Lutetium-177 is used to deploy precision nuclear medicine that precisely targets malignant cells while sparing surrounding healthy tissues.
The Made-in-Ontario IPS, designed and installed by Isogen at Bruce Power, irradiates ytterbium-176 to produce lutetium-177, which is then transported to ITM’s manufacturing facility in Germany for processing of pharmaceutical-grade, non-carrier-added lutetium-177 (n.c.a. lutetium-177).
ITM is a supplier of n.c.a. lutetium-177 to health care facilities around the world, and the isotope has been successfully used in various clinical and commercial radiopharmaceutical cancer treatments.
The IPS will leverage Bruce Power’s continual operations 24 hours a day, seven days a week to provide a consistent and scalable supply of life-saving isotopes that will be used by doctors to treat cancer patients around the world.
Commercial operation of the IPS will provide large-scale production of lutetium-177 at a time when global demand for these short-lived isotopes is on the rise.
ITM holds a U.S. Drug Master File (DMF) with the FDA for n.c.a. lutetium-177 and has marketing authorization in the EU (brand name EndolucinBeta).
ITM has exclusive access to the irradiation service provided by the IPS for the production of lutetium-177 and will use the increased supply of high-quality isotopes from the IPS to meet the growing demand by physicians and patients.
Bruce Power will collaborate with Saugeen Ojibway Nation to market the new isotope supply in an equity partnership named Gamzook’aamin Aakoziwin.
Bruce Power is an electricity company based in Bruce County, Ontario. Formed in 2001, Bruce Power is a Canadian-owned partnership of TC Energy, OMERS, the Power Workers’ Union and The Society of United Professionals.
Isogen is a joint venture between Framatome and Kinectrics, whose mission is to enable the use of CANDU reactors to produce the medical isotopes needed to treat and diagnose patients with serious diseases world-wide. Isogen’s enabling partnerships with Bruce Power and ITM allows them to produce the world’s largest and most reliable supply of life-saving, short-lived, therapeutic medical isotopes. ■