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Technical University of Munich

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Approval of the Molybdenum-99-producing Irradiation Facility

Aktuell, Industrie, Allgemein, Pressemitteilung |

The Bavarian ministry of state for environment and consumer protection has approved the construction and operation of an irradiation facility for uranium targets, designed to produce the isotope Molybdenum-99. With this decision, the FRM II in Garching will be able to cover a large part of Europe’s demand for this important means of cancer diagnosis.
Manufacturing Molybdenum-99 for medicine at TUM's Research Neutron Source

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The film shows the technical challenges of building the irradiation facility, the production process of technetium-99m and its application in medicine.

More than 30 million tumor diagnosing medical examinations are conducted with the radioactive substance Technetium-99m worldwide. A large proportion (some 3 million examinations) are done in Germany. Molybdenum-99 is indispensable to the production of Technetium-99m, the former of which can only be produced in a few research reactors around the world (four in Europe and one each in Australia and Africa). As such, shortages have not been uncommon in the past years. If one of these reactors is temporarily out of service, time-critical tumor examinations must be delayed. Due to Molybdenum-99’s short half life of only 66 hours, it cannot be mass-produced, but instead only directly prior to an examination.

Operation and scientific use of the neutron source in tandem

The research neutron source Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II) of the Technical University of Munich in Garching is currently being refitted in order to supply Europe with crucial diagnostic supplies for the heart and thyroid as well as for cancer.

The design and construction of the facility will be realized in such a way that its operation will be possible in parallel with the scientific use of the FRM II. The aim of further research will be to produce a significantly higher specific activity compared to existing production possibilities. This includes the safe cooling of the targets in a position of highest neutron flux and efficient packaging to minimize extraction and processing time and therefore to maximize the usable activity.

Essential contribution of FRM II to security of supply Mo-99/Tc-99m as the most important radioisotope in diagnostics © Reiner Müller/ FRM II

Important step for European security of supply with medical isotopes

Jan van den Heuvel, deputy Director-General for medical radioisotopes at the Netherlands Ministry of Health, welcomes the approval of the the Molybdenum-99-producing irradiation facility at FRM II: „Ensuring security of supply of medical radioisotopes in the European Union (EU) is of upmost importance for European patients to tackle diseases such as cancer. We congratulate Germany and FRM II with this step, bringing Europe a step closer to ensuring the security of supply within its ageing production infrastructure. Without initiatives like these, European patients will not be ensured access to vital treatments.”

Manufacture of an important means of cancer diagnosis at the research neutron source

With a weekly production target of 16,000 Curie (Ci) of Mo-99-Activity - this figure refers to the activity immediately following irradiation - the FRM II kann meet a large proportion of Europe’s demand for cancer diagnosis isotopes. The completion and installation of the facility are planned for the coming years.

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