ATLANTA, June 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Perma-Fix Environmental
Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:
PESI) today announced it has signed an exclusive option
agreement with Battelle, which operates Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy, to license technology
from PNNL for use with Perma-Fix’s proprietary process to safely
and cost-effectively produce Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), which is used
to make Technetium 99m (Tc-99m).Tc-99m is the most widely used
medical isotope in the world, and allows medical practitioners to
image internal body organs. The option agreement follows the
successful development of a proprietary manufacturing process for
medical isotopes developed independently by Perma-Fix, as well as
successful completion of a Cooperative Research and Development
Agreement (CRADA) between Perma-Fix and PNNL. Perma-Fix has applied
for patents covering various steps of the process and will
incorporate PNNL’s technology into its process.
Tc-99m is used in the nuclear medicine field for 80-85% of the
approximately 25 million diagnostic nuclear medical procedures
performed each year, from functional cardiac imaging aiding in the
diagnosis of a large number of heart diseases; cancer detection
bone scans; gastrointestinal issues; and imaging of the brain,
kidney, spleen and infections. There is no domestic source of
Mo-99, and nearly all of the world’s Mo-99 supply comes from the
thermal fission of highly enriched uranium (HEU) targets in foreign
reactors, which is a costly and unreliable source of radioactive
material and raises serious proliferation concerns.
Production issues have caused severe worldwide shortages in
the supply chain of Mo-99, disrupting medical procedures. These
shortages are due to aging reactors, production interruptions,
limitations on starting materials, and increasing demand for the
isotope, which is now used in over 4
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