POWER May 2020 - 8

A Nuclear Power Side Venture:
Medical Isotope Production
Earlier this year, nuclear technology giant
Framatome and power sector lifecycle
management service company Kinectrics
launched an Ontario-based joint
venture, Isogen, whose mission is to enable
the use of CANDU reactors to produce
critically needed medical isotopes.
The development points to an expanding
function for nuclear power plants beyond
the production of carbon-free electricity
that could furnish them with a lucrative
source of revenue.
Isogen's first partnership is with Bruce
Power, Canada's only private sector
nuclear generator. The company was established
in 2001 by TC Energy and three
worker advocacy groups, and today, it operates
a fleet of eight CANDU reactors that
produce about 30% of Ontario's power.
The nuclear generator in July 2019 joined
forces with Framatome and Kinetrics to
advance an innovative project that will leverage
the 2.4-GW power facility's scale
and redundancy to produce lutetium-177
(Lu-177). As experts have noted, this key
medical isotope can be used in targeted
radionuclide therapy to treat cancers such
as neuroendocrine tumors and prostate
cancer, because it can destroy cancer cells
while leaving healthy cells unaffected.
In November, the companies also
partnered with Isotopen Technologien
München (ITM) to leverage the Munich,
Germany-based biotechnology and radiopharmaceutical
group's manufacturing
methodology of no-carrier-added Lu-177-
known by its trademark, " EndolucinBeta. "
ITM noted that the partnership stemmed
from a successful feasibility study completed
earlier in 2019 that showed Framatome,
Kinetrics, and Bruce Power are " uniquely
positioned " to fulfill the necessary requirements
to establish isotope delivery units
at the Bruce Power reactors. The company
said the study " examined factors such as
technical, medical and nuclear regulatory
requirements, radiation protection
and
waste management. It also verified the
specific requirements of compatibility with
ITM's target and processing technology. "
As Bruce Power explained, the project
leverages infrastructure work underway at
the site to extend the facility's life to 2064.
Under the province's long-term energy
plan, the company has set out on a CA$13
billion program to refurbish six of the eight
units on its site on the eastern shore of
8
Lake Huron near Tiverton, Ontario. Under
the life-extension project, Bruce Power
kicked off a major component replacement
project this January that focuses on the
replacement of key reactor components
in Units 3-8, including steam generators,
pressure tubes, calandria tubes, and feeder
tubes. Bruce Power said the life extension
of each unit (starting with Unit 6 in
2020, Unit 3 in 2023, and Unit 4 in 2025)
" will add approximately 30 to 35 years of
operational life, while other investments
will add a combined 30 reactor years of
operational life to the units. "
Framatome noted that Bruce Power
is well-suited to foster the specialized
isotope production system because it
is a founding member of the Canadian
Nuclear Isotope Council (CNIC)-an entity
that strives to develop " collective
solutions " to maintain Canada's status
as a world leader in the production of
radioisotopes. For nearly 30 years, four
of its reactors have offered a significant
source of sterilization cobalt-60 (Co-60),
an isotope typically sourced from nuclear
companies that is widely used to sterilize
medical devices such as sutures, gloves,
and syringes. In fact, low-specific-activity
(LSA) Co-60 from Bruce Power sterilizes
more than 40% of the world's single-use
medical devices, the company said.
Last year, meanwhile, Bruce Power forayed
into production of medical-grade highspecific-activity
(HSA) Co-60, which is used
worldwide to battle complex cancer-such
as brain and breast cancer-and radiation
therapy. In March 2019, it completed its
first harvest of HSA Co-60 isotope (Figure
1), which spent nearly two years at Unit
7 before it was relayed to health science
company Nordion for processing.
Stemming from that achievement, in
September, Bruce Power entered into
a collaborative framework with Nordion
and medical technology company Xcision
to use HSA Co-60 for GammaPod,
Xcision's stereotactic radiotherapy system
that provides high-precision noninvasive
treatments for brain and breast
cancers. Co-60 is also a key component
in sterile insect techniques, which could
suppress Zika virus-carrying mosquitoes
and agricultural pests like pepper weevils,
for example, and food irradiation.
As Bruce Power explains, the power
facility receives Co-59 pellets and slugs
from a manufacturer (which sources
them from a mine), and they are then inwww.powermag.com
1.
Bruce Power in March 2019 completed its
first harvest of medical-grade cobalt-60, which
will be used to help diagnose and treat brain
and breast cancers. Courtesy: Bruce Power
stalled as adjuster rods in a reactor and
activated to become Co-60. After harvest,
the rods are suspended on the wall of the
secondary fuel bay, about 14 feet below
the surface, so that the water can shield
employees from the radioactivity. " From
the reactivity mechanism deck over the
fuel bay, Bruce Power's specialized fuel
handlers extract the individual irradiated
rods and place them in a shielded flask
to be shipped to Nordion's facility, " it said.
Isogen's Lu-177 isotope production
system will seek to turn targets into
medical isotopes through irradiation of
ytterbium-176 (Yb-176), similar to the
process that Bruce Power uses to produce
Co-60. The Yb-176 source material,
delivered by ITM, will be sealed in special
containers and placed in an isotope
production system in one of the Bruce
Power reactors for about two weeks, and
the resulting containers of Lu-177-each
of which generates enough isotopes for
about 200 patient treatments-will then
be sent for processing and distribution to
health care facilities worldwide, Framatome
told POWER. The process does not
generate any nuclear waste " as all the
materials are either used for treatment
of patients or are recycled to be used
to produce more of the isotope, " it explained.
For now, Isogen estimates that,
following all regulatory and other approvals,
isotope production could begin in
2022, with the goal of scaling based on
demands for Lu-177 and other isotopes.
Development of medical isotope proPOWER
| May 2020
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POWER May 2020

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