JANESVILLE, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SHINE Medical Technologies LLC, a nuclear technology company focused on becoming the world’s leading producer of medical isotopes, announced today that it has closed an $80-million Series C financing. Fidelity Management and Research Company LLC was the largest investor in the round, which also included participation from other new investors and the company’s current investors.
“SHINE is grateful to Fidelity and all of our investors for providing us the capital to move our product commercialization efforts forward,” said Todd Asmuth, president and chief financial officer of SHINE. “SHINE continues to make strong progress in our work to commercialize molybdenum-99, an essential diagnostic isotope, and lutetium-177, a therapeutic isotope that is showing great promise for the treatment of cancer.”
SHINE is building a first-of-a-kind medical isotope production facility in Janesville, Wis. The facility will initially produce molybdenum-99, or Mo-99, which is used in more than 40 million patient procedures annually. There has been little or no domestic production of the isotope for decades, causing chronic shortages of Mo-99. These shortages routinely and significantly affect the diagnosis and treatment of patients around the world.
SHINE has off-take agreements with three of the world’s largest Mo-99 distributors for the future supply of Mo-99. The company’s production facility will be capable of supplying more than one-third of the global demand for Mo-99.
Last October, the company created SHINE Therapeutics to focus on critical customer needs in the rapidly growing therapeutic isotope market. The division is working to commercialize lutetium-177, or Lu-177, a therapeutic isotope used to treat prostate, neuroendocrine and other cancers. SHINE’s unique technology enables it to produce non-carrier-added, high specific-activity Lu-177, the form of the isotope most in demand by today’s clinical trial sponsors.
“This funding round will help SHINE’s continuing efforts to commercialize vital diagnostic and therapeutic isotopes that will be created by our revolutionary, responsible production technologies,” said Greg Piefer, founder and CEO of SHINE. “The opportunity for SHINE to fill an urgent market need by creating a more robust supply of these isotopes was evident once again as patient supplies were being disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This equity round is an affirmation by high-quality investors of our long-term business strategy and the ongoing success of our efforts to build a U.S. production platform that will produce a reliable isotope supply, fill an urgent market need and meet the needs of tens of millions of patients each year.”
About SHINE Medical Technologies LLC
Founded in 2010, SHINE is a nuclear technology company working to become the world’s leading provider of radioisotopes for nuclear medicine. The SHINE system uses a patented, proprietary manufacturing process that offers major advantages over existing and proposed production technologies. It does not require a nuclear reactor, is better for the environment, generates less waste and is compatible with the nation’s existing supply chain for Mo-99. In 2014, SHINE announced the execution of Mo-99 supply agreements with GE Healthcare and Lantheus Medical Imaging. In 2015, with the help of Argonne National Laboratory, GE Healthcare demonstrated that SHINE Mo-99 can act as a drop-in replacement for reactor-based Mo-99. In 2016, SHINE received regulatory approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct its production facility. The company began construction of the facility in the spring of 2019 and strong progress on it continues. SHINE created SHINE Therapeutics in 2019 to enhance the company’s ability to fill critical needs in the rapidly growing therapeutic isotope market. The division is focused on the commercialization of Lu-177, a therapeutic isotope that is combined with a disease-specific target molecule to treat cancer.
