 | |
| Type | L.L.C. |
|---|---|
| Industry | Radiopharmaceutical |
| Founded | June 2010 |
| Founder | Gregory Piefer |
| Headquarters | |
| Website | shinefusion |
Shine Technologies (stylized as SHINE Technologies, where "SHINE" originated as an acronym for "subcritical hybrid intense neutron emitter"), [1] formerly named SHINE Medical Technologies, is a private corporation based in Janesville, Wisconsin. As of February 2016, the company was planning to build a facility to produce radioactive isotopes for medical applications. [2] [3]
In 2009, the supply of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), a precursor to technetium-99m used in more than 30 medical imaging procedures, fell short of demand due to maintenance idling of a pair of research reactors, one located in the Netherlands, forcing doctors to use more dangerous isotopes. [4] [5] By 2016, the largest global supplier of the isotope, a Canadian research reactor, was scheduled to go idle. [4] [5] In 2010, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a part of the United States Department of Energy, began funding a number of method development ventures aimed at ensuring that shortages in the United States could be avoided [5] as well as reducing the use of highly enriched uranium and with it lowering the risk of nuclear proliferation. [6]
SHINE was among a handful of early recipients of funds from the NNSA program and received US$ 13,900,000 through it as of 2014. [5] The company has also relied on venture capital funding, having secured up to US$ 125,000,000 from Deerfield Management beginning in October 2014. [5] [7]
The 2014 market for medical isotopes was estimated to be about US$ 600,000,000 per year. [5] Several companies in addition to SHINE were vying for part of this market, and the need for redundancy in production was expected to support a number suppliers beyond the minimum needed to meet current demand. [5]
The company had plans in 2015 to start production-scale generation of isotopes in 2018, having pushed the proposed start date back several times, [8] and it secured a number of supply agreements predicated on this start date. [5] [9]
SHINE also secured a US$ 150,000 National Science Foundation grant in 2014 to develop production methods for Iodine-131, which is used in the treatment of Graves' disease and certain cancers. [10]
Original technology for production of Mo-99 was reactor-based and unavoidably produced significant nuclear waste. [4] SHINE developed plans to use particle accelerator technology developed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison by company founder Gregory Piefer. [5] [10] The method, referred to as "neutron generator technology", uses helium and free neutrons, produced by colliding a beam of deuterium particles with tritium gas, to bombard low-level enriched uranium targets leading to the production of "useful isotopes with minimal waste". [5] In addition to the diagnostically useful Mo-99, the process can also produce Iodine-131, which is used in medical treatments. [2]
In 2013, SHINE constructed a full-scale prototype particle accelerator at their facility in Monona, Wisconsin, to be used to demonstrate the technology. Eight accelerators would be used at the Janesville facility. [11]
On June 15, 2015, Argonne National Laboratory demonstrated that SHINE's production, separation and purification process could produce Mo-99 which meets purity specifications of the British Pharmacopoeia. [6]
The NRC approved SHINE's construction permit for a facility in Janesville, Wisconsin in late February 2016. If constructed, the facility would still require NRC licensing to operate. [3] In 2014 the facility was originally slated for opening in 2016, and the planned opening was then delayed to 2017. [12] As of February 2016, construction was planned for 2017 with production potentially beginning in 2019. [3]
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) under a contract with the DOE, located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
A synthetic radioisotope is a radionuclide that is not found in nature: no natural process or mechanism exists which produces it, or it is so unstable that it decays away in a very short period of time. Examples include technetium-95 and promethium-146. Many of these are found in, and harvested from, spent nuclear fuel assemblies. Some must be manufactured in particle accelerators.
A radioactive tracer, radiotracer, or radioactive label is a chemical compound in which one or more atoms have been replaced by a radionuclide so by virtue of its radioactive decay it can be used to explore the mechanism of chemical reactions by tracing the path that the radioisotope follows from reactants to products. Radiolabeling or radiotracing is thus the radioactive form of isotopic labeling. In biological contexts, use of radioisotope tracers are sometimes called radioisotope feeding experiments.
Chalk River Laboratories is a Canadian nuclear research facility in Deep River, about 180 km (110 mi) north-west of Ottawa.
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) is a Canadian federal Crown corporation and Canada's largest nuclear science and technology laboratory. AECL developed the CANDU reactor technology starting in the 1950s, and in October 2011 licensed this technology to Candu Energy.
Radiopharmacology is radiochemistry applied to medicine and thus the pharmacology of radiopharmaceuticals. Radiopharmaceuticals are used in the field of nuclear medicine as radioactive tracers in medical imaging and in therapy for many diseases. Many radiopharmaceuticals use technetium-99m (Tc-99m) which has many useful properties as a gamma-emitting tracer nuclide. In the book Technetium a total of 31 different radiopharmaceuticals based on Tc-99m are listed for imaging and functional studies of the brain, myocardium, thyroid, lungs, liver, gallbladder, kidneys, skeleton, blood and tumors.
The synthesis of precious metals involves the use of either nuclear reactors or particle accelerators to produce these elements.
A technetium-99m generator, or colloquially a technetium cow or moly cow, is a device used to extract the metastable isotope 99mTc of technetium from a decaying sample of molybdenum-99. 99Mo has a half-life of 66 hours and can be easily transported over long distances to hospitals where its decay product technetium-99m is extracted and used for a variety of nuclear medicine diagnostic procedures, where its short half-life is very useful.
The Petten High Flux Reactor (HFR) is a nuclear research reactor located in Petten, Netherlands. The HFR is on the premises of the Petten research centre and it is a high flux reactor. It is owned by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and managed by the Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group (NRG).
The Clinton Power Station is a nuclear power plant located near Clinton, Illinois, USA. The power station began commercial operation on November 24, 1987 and has a nominal net electric output of 1062 MWe. Due to inflation and cost overruns, Clinton's final construction cost was $4.25 billion, nearly 1,000% over the original budget of $430 million and seven years behind schedule.
The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) is India's premier nuclear research facility, headquartered in Trombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It was founded by Homi Jehangir Bhabha as the Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay (AEET) in January 1954 as a multidisciplinary research program essential for India's nuclear program. It operates under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), which is directly overseen by the Prime Minister of India.
Molybdenum (42Mo) has 33 known isotopes, ranging in atomic mass from 83 to 115, as well as four metastable nuclear isomers. Seven isotopes occur naturally, with atomic masses of 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, and 100. All unstable isotopes of molybdenum decay into isotopes of zirconium, niobium, technetium, and ruthenium.
The National Research Universal (NRU) reactor was a 135 MW nuclear research reactor built in the Chalk River Laboratories, Ontario, one of Canada’s national science facilities. It was a multipurpose science facility that served three main roles. It generated radionuclides used to treat or diagnose over 20 million people in 80 countries every year. It was the neutron source for the NRC Canadian Neutron Beam Centre: a materials research centre that grew from the Nobel Prize-winning work of Bertram Brockhouse. It was the test bed for Atomic Energy of Canada Limited to develop fuels and materials for the CANDU reactor. At the time of its retirement on March 31, 2018, it was the world's oldest operating nuclear reactor.
The Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science & Technology (PINSTECH) is a federally funded multiprogram science and technology research institute managed for the Ministry of Energy by the Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS).
Technetium-99m (99mTc) is a metastable nuclear isomer of technetium-99, symbolized as 99mTc, that is used in tens of millions of medical diagnostic procedures annually, making it the most commonly used medical radioisotope in the world.
A neutron research facility is most commonly a big laboratory operating a large-scale neutron source that provides thermal neutrons to a suite of research instruments. The neutron source usually is a research reactor or a spallation source. In some cases, a smaller facility will provide high energy neutrons using existing neutron generator technologies.
The Soreq Applied Research Accelerator Facility (SARAF) is a multi-user and versatile particle accelerator facility. It is on a proton/deuteron RF superconducting linear accelerator, with variable energy and a continuous wave (CW) high ion current, and located at the Soreq Nuclear Research Center.
Phoenix, formerly known as Phoenix Nuclear Labs, is a company specializing in neutron generator technology located in Monona, Wisconsin. Founded in 2005, the company develops nuclear and particle accelerator technologies for application in medicine, defense and energy. Phoenix has held contracts with the U.S. Army, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force. Phoenix developed a proprietary gas target neutron generator technology and has designed and built a number of particle accelerator-related technologies.
ETRR-2 or ET-RR-2, or is the second nuclear reactor in Egypt supplied by the Argentine company Investigacion Aplicada (INVAP) in 1992. The reactor is owned and operated by Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority (EAEA) at the Nuclear Research Center in Inshas, 60 kilometres (37 mi) northeast of Cairo.
Radioisotopes Production Facility (RPF), is a facility for the production of radioisotopes from irradiation of Low enriched uranium (LEU) in the Egyptian Second Research Reactor (ETRR-2) Complex. The RPF was supplied by the Argentine company Investigacion Aplicada (INVAP) and was commissioned during October and November 2011. The produced radioisotopes are used in medicine, industry and research activities for domestic market.
The company has supply agreements in place and plans to build a production plant in Janesville, WI.