Manitoba has joined Saskatchewan in the race to fill the vacuum left by the federal government's decision to get out of the isotope supply business.
Ottawa made the decision in June to divorce itself from the deteriorating Chalk River nuclear facility, where continuing problems have resulted in long diagnostic waits for thousands of international cancer patients.
The modest Manitoba initiative pales compared to Saskatchewan's plans to build a whole new reactor, but the smaller operation could be up and running inside three years, with little regulatory hassle, and for the bargain-basement price of $35-million.
“Some of the bigger reactor projects are genuinely sound scientifically, but the budgets are anywhere from $500-million to $1.5-billion,” said David Walker, chairman of Acsion Industries, a company teaming up with the University of Winnipeg in the initiative.
“We're sort of the David versus Goliath option, the Prairie boys. But I don't think you'll find another expression of interest that combines so clearly a health-care focus and a low cost. We'll have to be taken seriously.”
Friday marks the federal government's deadline for new isotope suppliers to put forward their cases. While previously announced bids propose using nuclear reactors to churn out medical isotopes, critical tools used to detect cancer and heart illnesses, the University of Winnipeg submission offers something completely different.
Under the proposal, researchers would shore up the country's isotope stocks using a Manitoba-based particle accelerator rather than a nuclear reactor.
Unlike a reactor, a particle accelerator does not produce nuclear waste and would not be subject to the same stringent rules that make reactor construction a decade-long process.
“It's a completely different technology,” said Jeff Martin, a University of Winnipeg physicist. “The regulatory process is much simpler, and for good reason. For instance, you can shut an accelerator off. With a reactor, that's tricky.”
To carry out the proposal, the university has launched the Prairie Isotope Production Enterprise (PIPE), a not-for-profit partnership that includes Acsion, the province, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and other nuclear and radioisotope companies.
The team would start by producing isotopes at an Acsion-run particle accelerator located at the decommissioned Whiteshell Laboratories nuclear facility in Pinawa, Man. The accelerator would spray molybdenum metal with electricity, producing molybdenum-99. Further chemical processing then creates technetium-99, the isotope used in a wide variety of diagnostic testing.
If the Pinawa site proves the process can work, the university will locate a new accelerator in downtown Winnipeg dedicated to supplying Canadian demand.
“It's well-suited to the Canadian side of the issue,” said Acsion president Chris Saunders. “The whole focus for PIPE is to serve Canadian patients. We're not looking to export radioisotopes.”The researchers started looking into the isotope conundrum in 2007 when the Chalk River facility shut down for a full month, putting a pinch on world supplies.
With Chalk River currently under repairs for a leaky reservoir, medical isotope prices have skyrocketed. The price of a bone scan has soared as much as 50 per cent since May.
Tightening supplies have prompted the U.S. to develop its own solution to the problem. Earlier this week, a blue-ribbon coalition of nuclear medicine groups urged the U.S. government to invest in its own isotope facilities rather than relying on Europe, South Africa and Canada.
While the Manitoba solution isn't intended to solve international supply issues, the technology could be exported.
“Once you get it working here,” said Randy Kobes, associate dean of science at the university, “you can franchise it.”
The project would fit squarely into university president Lloyd Axworthy's broader vision of creating a health sciences research hub in downtown Winnipeg that incorporates the Health Sciences Centre, the National Research Council and the National Microbiology Laboratory.
