There was a major shortage of Mo-99 in 2009, and more recently, a NAS report in September, 2016, warned of another one on the horizon until global suppliers finish plans to expand capacity.

More demand has combined with the efforts to stop using highly enriched uranium (HEU) during Mo-99 production. The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) is providing funding for research and development of domestic Mo-99 production methods that don't use HEU.


The NAS report noted that at present about 75 percent of the current global supply of Mo-99 for medical use is generated using HEU, and the remaining 25 percent is produced with low enriched uranium (LEU).

Global suppliers of Mo-99 have committed to eliminating the use of HEU in reactor targets and medical isotope production facilities. But the widespread availability of Mo-99 produced with HEU is putting companies that use LEU at a competitive disadvantage.

The potential supply challenge was highlighted when Chalk River went offline in November, 2016.

“This is a very tenuous situation we’re looking at,” Christopher O’Brien, chief of nuclear medicine at the Brant Community Healthcare System in Southern Ontario told The Globe and Mail, as noted by HCB News. “If all the cogs in the wheel run smoothly, we will get by relatively safely. If one of the cogs in the wheel breaks, then the whole system collapses very quickly.”

The Canadian facility in Ottawa, which recently began ramping down production, is 60 years old and scheduled to close completely in 2018.

Other isotope suppliers are lined up to make up the demand — but should there be a major hitch in their production a global shortage could loom.

Should that happen, O'Brien told the paper, “you start to ration.”

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