$30 MILLION FOR MOLY-99 COOPERATIVE AGREEMENTS

On Tuesday, May 14, the House Appropriations Committee released the draft fiscal year 2020 Energy and Water Development funding bill which provided $35 million to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Molybdenum-99 (“Mo-99”) Cooperative Agreement program. 

The program is centered around establishing a reliable supply of non-HEU sourced Mo-99 produced in the US as directed by the American Medical Isotopes Production Act of 2012. 

Mo-99 is used in over 40,000 nuclear medicine procedures every day in the US every day to non-invasively evaluate regional physiologic and metabolic processes, such as blood flow, with the ultimate goal of localizing diseased tissues and organs. Until recently, the U.S. has relied solely on aging, foreign Mo-99 vendors, most of which use HEU in their production process. HEU is a highly dangerous, fissile material which can be used when building a nuclear weapon or improvised nuclear device. 

Funding the cooperative agreements with domestic companies will help the meet the needs of patients in the US and decrease the nuclear security risks associated with HEU fuel.