SHINE Partners with Missouri Nuclear Reactor to Manufacture Cancer Drugs | Local news

While SHINE Medical Technologies is working on expanding its future nuclear medicine manufacturing facility in Janesville, the company is also planning a new partnership to boost production of anti-cancer drugs.

SHINE has announced a “multi-year” partnership with the University of Missouri Research Reactor in Columbia, Missouri, to manufacture Lutetium-177 (Lu-177), a drug showing promise in the control and treatment of certain late-stage cancers.

SHINE’s partnership with the Missouri University Nuclear Reactor will enable the company to advance commercialization of Lu-177, the company said in a press release.

SHINE spokesman Rod Hise said SHINE produced Lu-177 on a “small scale” at its nuclear particle accelerator test facility on the south side of Janesville. This work will be carried out in parallel with the ongoing expansion of a 45,000 square meter production facility by SHINE, which is to be completed and marketed by 2022, the company announced.

Hise said the multi-year agreement with the University of Missouri will be formally announced at a national nuclear medicine symposium this week.Katrina Pitas, SHINE’s vice president and director of therapeutic drugs at SHINE, said the partnership with the university reactor comes at a time when SHINE is signaling a growth in its customer base – in part by expanding its forays into drugs to treat cancer.

SHINE initially received regulatory approval to build its future Janesville facility as a manufacturing facility for the bone and tissue illuminant Molybdenum-99, but the company is also working on the production of cancer drugs, including Lu-177. Lu-177 has already been approved by the federal government for use in certain late-stage neuroendocrine cancers.

SHINE said nuclear medicine also shows promise in treating advanced cancers, including metastatic prostate cancer and breast, liver and brain cancers, among others.

Hise said when SHINE’s Janesville manufacturing facility is completed, its line of multiple nuclear particle accelerators will be capable of producing 300,000 cans of Lu-177 per year.

“The large-scale lutetium manufacturing facility will mark another milestone in the rapid development of Janesville into a global center for nuclear medicine,” said Hise.

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