To tackle the situation, Hitachi, Tohoku University's Research Center for Electron- Photon Science, and Kyoto University's Institute for Integrated Radiation and Nuclear Science have joined forces to develop a method of producing 225Ac that does not involve nuclear material by applying technologies Hitachi has accumulated in the fields of particle therapy and nuclear power generation. Together, they have successfully established for the first time technology for highly efficient and high-quality production of 225Ac that uses an electron linear accelerator with 226Ra as the source material. This production method involves the use of highly penetrating bremsstrahlung radiation (8) to irradiate 226Ra. In addition to being an efficient production method, it also produces high-quality 225Ac because it does not produce impurities that are difficult to separate (Figure 2).
The team has conducted a proof-of-principle test on the production of 225Ac using a small amount of 226Ra, and collected detailed data on 226Ra's photonuclear reactions.(9) Based on the findings from the test, the team, in a joint research project with the addition of researchers from Tohoku University's Institute for Materials Research, who own the technology to handle large amounts of radium, has succeeded in producing approximately 370 kBq of 225Ac, an amount that is sufficient for the future evaluation of its applicability in pharmaceutical products. This represents a major step forward for commercial application of this production method, such that the amount of 225Ac currently produced globally in a year (63 GBq/y) (7) can be produced in one day.(10)
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Parts of these results will be shared as a Top Rated Oral Presentation at the 34th Annual Congress of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine, (11) which takes place October 20-23, 2021.
About Hitachi, Ltd.
Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is contributed to a sustainable society with a higher quality of life by driving innovation through data and technology as the Social Innovation Business. Hitachi is focused on strengthening its contribution to the Environment, the Resilience of business and social infrastructure as well as comprehensive programs to enhance Security & Safety. Hitachi resolves the issues faced by customers and society across six domains: IT, Energy, Mobility, Industry, Smart Life and Automotive Systems through its proprietary Lumada solutions. The company's consolidated revenues for fiscal year 2020 (ended March 31, 2021) totaled 8,729.1 billion yen ($78.6 billion), with 871 consolidated subsidiaries and approximately 350,000 employees worldwide.
