SHINE Medical Technologies, a Monona, Wis.-based medical isotope manufacturer, and GE Healthcare announced this week that SHINE’s molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) was used to successfully obtain technetium-99m (Tc‑99m) from GE Healthcare’s Drytec technetium generator.

SHINE and GE Healthcare signed a Mo-99 supply agreement back in 2014. According to the companies’ joint statement, this latest breakthrough shows that SHINE’s Mo-99 can be incorporated into the existing supply chain.

“Our customers—healthcare providers and imaging specialists—rely on a secure supply of molybdenum‑99 to ensure that patients can get the diagnostic imaging scans they need,” Jan Makela, general manager of Core Imaging, GE Healthcare Life Sciences, said in a statement. “We are working hard to make this key isotope readily-available and cost-effective for customers. Successfully using the SHINE material for our DRYTEC Tc‑99m generator is a promising step in making that goal a reality.”

"We have been confident from the beginning that molybdenum-99 produced by our process would be compatible with existing Tc‑99m generators, and now we’ve proved it,” Greg Piefer, SHINE CEO, said in the same statement. “This demonstration validates that the cleaner, safer technical approach we’ve been pursuing can be fully integrated into the existing supply chain."

The U.S. does not currently produce any of the world’s supply of Mo-99, but manufacturers such as SHINE are trying to change that in the face of depleting resources.

SHINE announced in October that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had recommended approval of the company’s medical isotope production facility in Janesville, Wis.