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Orano Med inaugurates Pb-212 production facility in Indiana
Guillaume Dureau of Orano Group (left) and Orano Med’s Julien Dodet cut the ribbon on the new ATLabs Indianapolis. (Photo: Orano)
Orano Group subsidiary Orano Med, a developer of targeted alpha therapies for oncology, inaugurated its first ATLab (Alpha Therapy Laboratory) earlier this month. Located in Brownsburg, near Indianapolis, Ind., ATLab Indianapolis is an industrial-scale pharmaceutical facility dedicated to the production of lead-212–based radioligand therapies.
Targeted alpha therapy has shown to be effective in treating various oncological diseases, combining the natural ability of biological molecules to target cancer cells with the short-range cell-killing capabilities of alpha emissions generated by Pb-212. With a half-life of 10.64 hours, along with a decay product of the short-lived alpha-emitter bismuth-212, Pb-212 allows for the possible synthesis and purification of complex radiopharmaceuticals with minimum loss of radioactivity during preparation.
The development of radiopharmaceuticals has long been hampered by the difficulty of manufacturing and distribution on an industrial scale, Orano said, adding that the construction of ATLab Indianapolis is a major step toward making these new treatments available to cancer patients with high unmet needs in North America.
Thomas H. Newton, Jr., Kent J. Riley, Peter J. Binns, Gordon E. Kohse, Lin-Wen Hu, Otto K. Harling
Nuclear Technology | Volume 139 | Number 2 | August 2002 | Pages 175-183
Technical Paper | Radiation Biology and Medicine | doi.org/10.13182/NT02-A3312
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new epithermal neutron irradiation facility, based on a fission converter assembly placed in the thermal column outside the reactor core, has been put into operation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research Reactor (MITR). This facility was constructed to provide a high-intensity, forward-directed beam for use in neutron capture therapy with an epithermal flux of [approximately equal to]1010 n/cm2s at the medical room entrance with negligible fast neutron and gamma-ray contamination. The fission converter assembly consists of 10 or 11 MITR fuel elements placed in an aluminum tank and cooled with D2O. Thermal-hydraulic criteria were established based on heat deposition calculations. Various startup tests were performed to verify expected neutronic and thermal-hydraulic behavior. Flow testing showed an almost flat flow distribution across the fuel elements with <5% bypass flow. The total reactivity change caused by operation of the facility was measured at 0.014 ± 0.002% K/K. Thermal power produced by the facility was measured to be 83.1 ± 4.2 kW. All of these test results satisfied the thermal-hydraulic safety criteria. In addition, radiation shielding design measurements were made that verified design calculations for the neutronic performance.