An international collaboration between Bruce Power, Isogen (a Kinectrics and Framatome company) and ITM Isotope Technologies Munich has announced the start of commercial production of lutetium-177 at the Bruce NPP in Ontario, Canada.  

This milestone was achieved following completion of final commissioning and regulatory approval from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and is the culmination of a multi-year project to install a novel Isotope Production System (IPS) in Bruce Power’s unit 7. It marks the first-of-its-kind achievement of a commercial power reactor with additional capability to commercially produce short-lived medical isotopes. The IPS will provide, industrial-scale production of lutetium-177, a medical isotope used for targeted cancer therapeutics.

The Made-in-Ontario IPS, designed and installed by Isogen at Bruce Power, irradiates ytterbium-176 to produce lutetium-177, which is then transported to ITM’s manufacturing facility in Germany for processing of pharmaceutical-grade, non-carrier-added lutetium-177 (n.c.a. lutetium-177). ITM is a supplier of n.c.a. lutetium-177 to health care facilities around the world, and the isotope has been successfully used in various clinical and commercial radiopharmaceutical cancer treatments.

“Today we celebrate the efforts of Bruce Power, ITM, our Kinectrics staff, and our partner in Isogen, Framatome, whose collective efforts enabled the start of commercial supply of lutetium-177,” said Kinectrics CEO David Harris. “This day marks a paradigm shift in medical isotope supply wherein the international medical community can now depend on scalable, reliable, Canadian, power-reactor produced isotopes for their cancer treatments.”

The IPS will leverage Bruce Power’s continual operations 24 hours a day, seven days a week to provide a consistent and scalable supply of isotopes. Commercial operation of the IPS will provide large-scale production of lutetium-177 at a time when global demand for these short-lived isotopes is on the rise. ITM holds a US Drug Master File (DMF) with the FDA for n.c.a. lutetium-177 and has marketing authorization in the EU (brand name EndolucinBeta.

Image: The isotope production system at Bruce 7 (courtesy of Bruce Power)