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Piefer[/caption]
Janesville-based
SHINE Technologies, a manufacturer of medical isotopes, announced this week it has closed a $70 million funding round. This new funding will allow the company to complete the process of scaling up and commercializing near-term applications for its fusion technology, which is used in the industrial, defense and health care industries.
Earlier this year, SHINE opened
the largest production facility dedicated to producing Lutetium-177, one of the company's medical isotopes, in North America. SHINE first began producing Lutetium-177, also called Lu-177, in April 2021.
Lu-177 is a radioactive agent that, when paired with a cancer-seeking molecule, delivers highly targeted radiation to cancer metastases, killing cancer cells while minimizing damage to surrounding healthy cells. At full capacity, SHINE’s newest facility is expected to be capable of producing up to 200,000 doses of life-saving treatment per year.
"From the beginning, our purpose has been to deliver cost-effective fusion technologies to help the world, with a long-term goal of providing cost-effective fusion energy," said
Greg Piefer, founder and chief executive officer of SHINE. "Our approach is differentiated in that it's grounded in a pragmatic, market-driven path. This financing is expected to carry us through several major inflection points, including profitability as we continue to refine fusion technology to solve today's problems in medicine, manufacturing, energy and beyond."
SHINE aims to be the industry’s only vertically integrated producer of Lu-177 in order to provide a reliable and scalable supply, independent of current supply-chain restraints. The company also manufactures Mo-99, an isotope that decays into an imaging agent used in 40,000 diagnostic medical procedures in the U.S. each day.
"We're now ramping our production of Lu-177 to get life-saving medicine to cancer patients more quickly," said Piefer. "It's the latest use of our technology to improve the world and adds to our neutron inspection and radiation effects testing businesses, which are helping ensure people are safe through applications in aerospace, space and defense. Ultimately, these success stories will build value, as well as the skills and credibility needed to achieve our ultimate goal of achieving affordable fusion energy."
