Date: Jan 06, 2016 Source: Journal Sentinel (
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Shine Medical Technologies Inc., a Monona company aiming to make medical isotopes, has raised $11.5 million of debt financing, according to a filing with federal securities regulators.
Shine is seeking approval to build a plant in Janesville that would produce molybdenum-99, or moly-99, an isotope that is critical for certain medical imaging tests that diagnose, monitor and treat some cancers as well as heart and brain diseases.
The company said in October that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff had recommended that the agency approve a construction permit for it. Company officials say Shine is the first U.S.-based medical isotope producer to have reached the final stage in the agency's permitting process since the 1960s. Shine expects to receive the construction permit this year.
Shine began raising the $11.5 million in 2013, and 93 investors were involved in the funding, the filing said. The new money brings to about $50 million the total amount Shine has raised from investors and government sources, said Katrina Pitas, vice president of business development.
Shine, which grew out of technology developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, signed a long-term agreement in 2014 to supply moly-99 to GE Healthcare. Tests conducted by the two companies in November showed that moly-99 made with Shine's proprietary method worked with GE's equipment and processes, proving its market viability.
Shine and Beloit-based NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes LLC both began receiving funding from the National Nuclear Security Administration in 2010 to develop production of moly-99. Production issues at nuclear reactors outside the United States and worries about nuclear proliferation have the federal government looking for ways to produce isotopes more safely at home.
