Conceptual plan of radiopharmaceutical production process in JMTR

At Oarai Research and Development Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) advances the plan of refurbishing Japan Materials Testing Reactor (JMTR) to start the operation in fiscal 2011. As part of effective use for JMTR, JAEA is planning to product 99Mo, which is a parent nuclide of 99mTc. 99mTc is most commonly used as a radiopharmaceutical in the field of nuclear medicine. Currently the supplying of 99Mo is only depend on imports from foreign countries, so JAEA is aiming at domestic production of a part of 99Mo in cooperation with the industrial circles. In this article, it introduces the conceptual plan of the process, the irradiation facilities, and the commercializing equipments after irradiation for 99Mo production. (author)