VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ARTMS Products, Inc., a Vancouver-based medical technology company, has won ‘Most Promising Pre-Commercial Technology’ at the BC Tech Technology Impact Awards recently held in Vancouver. Chosen from a very competitive pool of companies from diverse areas of industry, this distinction is granted to the company poised to drive fundamental change in their industry within the next five years.
ARTMS has developed a novel and promising alternative medical isotope production technology, the QUANTM Irradiation System™(QIS™), that will stabilize the global supply chain of key medical isotopes, such as technetium-99m (Tc-99m). Tc-99m is used in over 80% of all nuclear medicine imaging procedures in areas such as cardiology, oncology, and neurology. Typically sourced from an ageing, global fleet of nuclear reactors, this important medical isotope has been subject to significant supply disruptions in recent years. ARTMS’ technology, encapsulating the QIS™ and QUANTM99M™ disposable target plates, will alleviate these supply issues by enabling the local production of Tc-99m using hospital-based medical cyclotrons, instead of nuclear reactors. Having already demonstrated proof of concept in Tc-99m production, this viable alternative allows for a safe, reliable, and environmentally sound supply of this critical medical isotope.
“The development and rollout of the core technology behind the ARTMS’ QUANTM Irradiation System™ represents a huge success for the British Columbia technology sector, especially in the area of particle accelerators applied to medicine," said Dr. Paul Schaffer, CEO of ARTMS. “This BC Tech TIA award is a wonderful testament to the dedicated team behind this technology. We are certainly very excited about the future that lies ahead for the company.”
ARTMS is commercializing the QUANTM Irradiation System™ by both partnering with leading manufacturers of new cyclotrons, and via direct sales to the hospitals and clinics currently operating medical cyclotrons. The QUANTM Irradiation System™ includes all of the required products and procedures for the production of Tc-99m using cyclotrons through the bombardment of a high-energy proton beam against a specific chemical ‘target’. This process avoids the use of enriched uranium, and does not produce any long-lived radioactive waste. Beyond Tc-99m, ARTMS’ product portfolio includes hardware and consumable targets that will enable existing and new cyclotron centres to produce a number of other valuable isotopes and those of growing medical importance, such as copper-64, gallium-68 and zirconium-89.
ABOUT ARTMS Products, Inc.
ARTMS™ Products Inc. is the recognized leader in the development of novel technologies and products which enable the production of the world’s most administered diagnostic imaging isotope, technetium‐99m (Tc‐99m), using local, hospital-based medical cyclotrons. ARTMS holds the exclusive global commercialization rights to these award-winning and proprietary Canadian inventions which offer the prospect of revolutionizing the nuclear medicine industry.
