At a Glance
- The U.S. has recovered large quantities of a rare and valuable feedstock material used for medical radioisotope production.
- Recovered Ra-226 is a feedstock for producing alpha-emitting isotopes needed to produce targeted alpha therapy.
- Technical capabilities that enable scalable Ra-226 recovery include type A shipping package configurations.
U.S. government Agencies have recovered large quantities of a rare and valuable feedstock material used for medical radioisotope production, radium-226 (Ra-226), from obsolete materials stored as radiological waste at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) facilities.
In essence, they have developed a scalable, cost-effective model that helps secure a domestic supply of scarce medical radioisotope feedstocks, while reducing legacy radiological waste, according to a recent press release by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). For decades, obsolete radioactive sources, such as the Ra-226 seeds once used in pioneering brachytherapy, were viewed strictly as hazardous waste. They represented a costly, long-term liability that hospitals and federal facilities had to safely secure, store, and eventually dispose of, said Manny Mejias, Chief of NIST’s Radiation Safety Division and NIST’s coordinator on this project. “This initiative flips that paradigm, offering a powerful proof-of-concept for reuse of materials in medical technology. By collaborating across agencies (DOE and NIST), we’ve proven that we can essentially ‘mine’ these historical liabilities for high-value, strategic materials. Materials that currently cost institutions money to dispose of can be transformed into feedstock for life-saving medical therapies,” Mejias told MD+DI.
Recovering and repurposing these waste materials is key to strengthening a secure, resilient domestic medical isotope supply chain, according to Christopher Landers, Director of DOE’s Office of Isotope R&D and Production (IRP).
Tapping the untapped resource
Modern brachytherapy has replaced Ra-226 brachytherapy treatments, which involved delivering targeted radiation directly into cancerous tumors. Today’s treatment uses safer isotopes such as iridium-192 and iodine-125, and precise external radiation technologies that can target tumors from outside the body. This created a vacuum of unwanted radioactive seeds stored in NIST facilities, without good access to routine waste streams.
However, recovered Ra-226 is a feedstock for producing alpha-emitting isotopes. “Right now, there is a great need to secure a resilient, domestic supply chain for alpha-emitting medical radioisotopes,” said Mejias, who pointed to industry’s “explosion of clinical interest in targeted alpha therapy (TAT) — a revolutionary approach that pairs an alpha-emitting isotope with a biological targeting molecule to seek out and destroy advanced, metastatic cancer cells with incredible precision, sparing surrounding healthy tissue.”
In a review published in the European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, authors wrote that targeted alpha therapy has emerged as a promising radiopharmaceutical modality in precision oncology.
Pharmaceutical companies, including Bayer Global are developing TAT therapies. The global alpha emitters market size is on course to nearly double from close to $756 million in 2024 to about $1.56 billion by 2032, with an 11.44% compound annual growth rate, according to the Alpha Emitters Market Size, Trends, Share, Analysis [2032] report by Sac Insight.
Global supply of the necessary isotopes for TAT (such as actinium-225 and lead-212) is severely constrained, Mejias said. “Our contacts at research organizations and commercial suppliers tell us that this scarcity creates a massive bottleneck for clinical trials and commercialization. Radium-226 is a critical, highly sought-after precursor material needed to produce these therapies,” Mejias said.
According to DOE, through irradiation in reactors or cyclotrons, Ra-226 can be converted into:
- actinium-225, a high-priority radioisotope for targeted alpha therapy;
- actinium-227, which decays to radium-223 used in an FDA-approved prostate cancer treatment; and
- thorium-228, capable of decaying into a radium-224/lead-212 generator with the lead-212, which has an increasing impact in targeted cancer therapies.
“By leveraging existing Ra-226, we can increase the domestic production capacity of actinium-225,” said Matt Fountain, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL’s) Project Manager for the initiative.
PNNL was charged with developing and executing the technical capabilities needed to safely recover Ra-226 at different sites and in diverse material forms. This includes safe Ra-226 material handling, packaging, and transport to support IRP’s ongoing efforts to aggregate domestic Ra-226 inventories, process and purify the material, and distribute it, according to DOE.
PNNL developed and executed technical capabilities to enable scalable recovery operations across diverse sites, including multiple type A shipping package configurations with various shielding levels; radioactivity activity allowances; physical mass and volume capacities; and remote handling tools, according to Fountain.
Model specifics
PNNL developed a specially designed type A shipping cask and special form capsule to enable the safe recovery and transport of Ra-226 from sites across the U.S. and globally. The shipping cask allows PNNL researchers to safely recover the medical waste and convert it into a usable precursor for nuclear medicine, according to a PNNL news release.
In the initial test, the PNNL designed and fabricated a cask and material handling tools that were flexible enough to be applied in widely varying configurations at remote recovery sites. They created site survey and planning documents to mitigate risk and maximize efficiency in coordinating between PNNL and the remote site, according to the release.
PNNL performed mockups to become more proficient with the special extension tools, temporary shielding, choreographed handling, and special form closure steps needed to safely manage the process. PNNL and NIST later safely performed the same steps with real Ra-226 at NIST.
“The mockup efforts were crucial to developing a smooth and efficient process,” said Jamin Trevino, a PNNL Leader in the on-site efforts. “We were able to test procedures without the risk of radiation exposure to be confident in our approach. When we finally were working with the Ra-226 samples, we knew exactly how to operate.”
The demonstration validated the model, and the devices have since been shipped back to PNNL for recovery, purification, dispensing, and subsequent internal use or shipping of purified Ra-226 to customers based on requests to IRP’s National Isotope Development Center, according to PNNL’s release.
Big picture possibilities beyond Ra-226
“For engineers and manufacturers, this is a call to think about end-of-life recovery during the design phase of medical technologies. How can we build devices, or utilize rare materials, in ways that allow for easier extraction and upcycling decades later?” Mejias said.
REFERENCE: MD+DI (Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry); 01 JUN 2026; Lisette Hilton