A new production facility, that will be of great importance for the production and development of nuclear medicine, is being built in Petten, a small town in the province of Noord-Holland. The Nuclear Health Centre (NHC) will be processing and packaging large amounts of irradiated raw materials (medical isotopes) into semi-finished products (radio chemicals) and medicines (radiopharmaceuticals). These products will help treating millions of patients in hospitals. The medical industry is in urgent need of production facilities that can process irradiated materials into medicines by order of hospitals or pharmaceutical companies.
The production chain of nuclear medicines
Every day, 30,000 patients are depending on the production of medical radioisotopes coming from the Energy & Health Campus (EHC) in Petten. As a result, the Netherlands is considered among the global top of medical isotope producers. These numbers are believed to only increase due to innovative therapies involving reactor-produced medical isotopes and the worldwide climbing number of patients. Customers will benefit from an integrated supply chain service in Petten. The NHC will be complementary to the FIELD-LAB of NRG and other labs on the EHC. It will be built in close proximity of the current reactor in Petten (the HFR) and even on the same site where the PALLAS-reactor is foreseen in the near future. This will save costs on decay loss, targets and radioactive transport. Another advantage is the nuclear knowledge and experience that is already present on site in Petten.
