The European Commission has approved a plan by the Netherlands to spend €2bn on a new medical isotope production facility in Petten, about 220km north of Amsterdam.
The plan is to build a “Pallas” reactor to replace the existing “high flux” unit, which has been one of the world’s main sources of medical isotopes since 1961.
It will be sited in the Nuclear Research Group’s (NRG’s) Energy and Health Campus in Petten, home to some 1,600 employees of NRG, as well as drug companies and universities.
The commission must approve state aid from governments to companies since it may allow the companies in question to gain an unfair advantage in the single market.
Bertholt Leeftink, the chief executive of the Nuclear Research Group, which runs the reactor, said the decision was “good news for us, for the Netherlands, but especially for many patients with life-threatening diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases, who depend on medical isotopes”.
He added: “With the arrival of the new Pallas reactor, the production of medical isotopes and the innovation of new applications for the treatment of, among other diseases, cancer will be guaranteed.”
The replacement reactor is expected to start operating in the early 2030s. In addition, the proposal includes a nuclear health centre for processing medical isotopes produced by the reactor into radiochemicals, which will then be further processed into radiopharmaceuticals.
The commission’s decision to green-light the proposal was subject to certain conditions related to limiting its impact on competition and trade.
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