SA’S nuclear energy firm to produce new medical isotope

THE Nuclear Energy Corporation of SA (Necsa) will be producing a new medical isotope by late next year.

Medical isotopes are an important source of revenue for the parastatal, with Necsa’s NTP Radioisotopes generating R711m in company sales last year, according to Necsa’s 2011 annual report.

The company is one of the world’s leading producers of Molybdenum99, which is used in medical nuclear diagnostic testing.

Licensed by Brazilian company Isotope Technologies Garching (ITG), the new isotope is called Lutetium-177 (Lu-177), which is used to treat neuro-endocrine tumours.

“It has also come to our attention that the need for Lu-177, an isotope used very successfully in the treatment of neuro-endocrine tumours in conjunction with regular PET diagnostic techniques, is growing very rapidly in the global markets,” NTP Radioisotopes MD Don Robertson said yesterday. “To exploit this market, NTP has joined forces with ITG to establish manufacturing capabilities to supply SA and other African countries with Lu-177.”

The company would be producing the product at new radiopharmaceutical production facilities at its Pelindaba site, Mapula Letsoalo, NTP’s executive director for stakeholder and government relations, said yesterday.

“Currently a single dose sells for a few thousand dollars,” she said. “Lu-177 has not yet been introduced to the South African market, although there is a local demand for the product.

“The Lu-177 isotope will be available soon as an imported product from ITG until NTP’s production facilities had been established.

Ms Letsoalo would not divulge the licensing cost, saying that it was “commercially sensitive”. She was also unable to say how much the locally produced product would cost South Africans.

Necsa said yesterday the aim of the collaboration was to ensure people in Brazil and African countries had access to the technology. The company would become the exclusive distribution partner for ITG.

“The target is to produce a few hundred Curies per year — a few thousand patient doses — which (will be sold) in Africa and Brazil in terms of the licence agreement,” Ms Letsoalo said. However, the new isotope would not rival NTP Radioisotopes’ major radiochemical product, Molybdenum-99.

“Lu-177 will not be a high-volume product for NTP … but represents a high value-added product in the portfolio mix of NTP,” she said.

Although the local supply would only be available from “late next year”, the imported product would be available soon, Ms Letsoalo said.

A problem at a radioisotope facility in Canada in 2009 saw SA becoming the world’s leading radioisotope producer as it responded to the supply shortfall. “Most international flights that leave OR Tambo (International Airport) contain one of these medical isotopes, encased in a special container,” Necsa spokesman Elliot Mulane said last year.

“The container can be compared to the black box on the plane — it’s that hardy.” NTP supplies more than 50 countries with its isotopes.