The future of medical isotope supply – 2017 status update

The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) performs regular work in support of the High Level Group on the security of supply of Medical Radioisotopes (HLG-MR) by collecting and analysing market and production capacity data provided by supply chain members. In the most recent NEA News bulletin (NEA News No. 35.1), the NEA published a new article “The future of medical isotope supply – 2017 status update”. The article reviews a recent NEA report “2017 Medical Isotope Supply Review: 99Mo/99mTc Market Demand and Production Capacity Projection 2017-2022” (NEA, 2017) and compares the latest global supply capacity projections for the period 2017 to 2022 with estimates made in previous reports.

Research performed in 2014 had identified a period of potential capacity weakness that could result from two reactors and one processing facility ending normal operations during 2015 and 2016. In the “2017 status update”, the NEA reports that the remaining supply chain members progressively increased their production capabilities in a number of different ways to compensate for this.

The latest NEA 2017 report confirms that the baseline scenario for production capacity, the scenario when only existing supply chain members are considered, has increased for the second consecutive year. The increase came from the more effective use of existing facilities and has lifted the baseline supply capacity for the 2017 and 2018 periods to a level that is safely above the estimated average market demand.

The full NEA “2017 status update” article and the underlying regular NEA reports on market demand and production capacity projections can be found at the following address on the NEA website (www.oecd-nea.org)

(report available here: https://www.oecd-nea.org/cen/docs/2017/sen-hlgmr2017-2.pdf