Nuclearelectrica and Framatome Agree on Production of Lu-177, a medical radioisotope.

[NNadir]

The news item is here: Nuclearelectrica and Framatome in lutetium-177 agreement.

Subtitle:

Romania's Nuclearelectrica and France's Framatome have signed a cooperation agreement on exploring the production of the medical isotope lutetium-177 at the Cernavoda nuclear power plant.

Excerpt:

A technical feasibility study will be conducted, based on Framatome's work on isotope production in Canada. The agreement will look at how to "maximise the existing infrastructure to convert target into medical isotopes".

Lutetium-177 is a beta-emitting radioisotope used in targeted radionuclide therapy to treat prostate cancer by destroying cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unaffected.

François Gauché, Director of Framatome Healthcare, said: "We are excited about this project with Nuclearelectrica. Mass access to nuclear medicine is closely linked to the development of large scale, reliable and diversified supply chains and we want to play our part in the fight against cancer by helping build these supply chains, to better serve the patients in the future, we will need regional nuclear medicine production hubs and this project is a great opportunity to strengthen the supply chain in Europe."

For full disclosure, I have personally worked with Bernard Fontana, pictured in the article, the CEO of Framochem, albeit earlier in his career, when he was not working in the nuclear industry but rather peripherally in the pharmaceutical industry.