Lantheus Medical Imaging Inc. added supply deals for a rare imaging isotope to an existing pact with an Australian supplier, supplementing its ability to relieve a shortage caused by the 2009 shutdown of a Canadian reactor.
Molybdenum-99 is used to produce technetium-99m, a medical radioisotope used in molecular and nuclear diagnostic imaging procedures. Supplies of the parent isotope became scarce after a Canadian reactor that produced a third of the global supply went offline in May 2009.
The new deals will see Lantheus use Mo-99 from the Institute for Radioelements in Fleurus, Belgium, and the Nuclear Research Institute in Rez, Czech Republic in its TechneLite Tc99m generators.
Last summer the Billerica diagnostic imaging device maker inked a deal with the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization to receive Mo-99. In March, Mansfield, Mass.-based Covidien plc (NYSE:COV) inked a similar deal with the Polish Institute of Atomic Energy’s Maria reactor.
