Q&A With Melody Greaves: CNIC and Canada’s Future as a Global isotope Power

This year, the Canadian Nuclear Isotope Council has grown significantly to reach over 95 members across the Canadian and international nuclear isotope industry, including companies across the nuclear supply chain, radiopharmaceutical companies, leading healthcare and research institutions, new academic partners, industry organizations, and beyond.

We are also proud to have hosted our largest Canadian Radiotheranostics Leaders’ Summit to date. This two-day event hosted by the CNIC and the University Health Network (UHN) in partnership with the Canadian Medical Isotope Ecosystem (CMIE) brought together 300+ leaders from the radioisotope, healthcare, research, student, and policy communities to highlight issues of greatest relevance in the Canadian medical isotope landscape and shape the future to best serve patients. Hosted in Toronto at the MaRS Discovery Centre, the event also included representatives of the federal, provincial, and municipal governments as well as Indigenous communities.

CNIC is strengthened by a network of academic partners across the country that are leading new initiatives aimed at attracting and training the next generation of isotope and radiopharmaceutical leaders here in Canada.

A key feature of our 2024 Canadian Radiotheranostics Leaders’ Summit was our first-ever Student Program, which welcomed ten of the top students in Canada from CNIC-member institutions to the Summit. With the rising need for skilled talent in the industry, the Student Program connected students with prominent national isotope leaders and explore exciting career opportunities in the lifesaving field of medical isotopes.

In June, we released a new report in partnership with Ontario Tech TALENT entitled “Skills for Isotopes: Building Workforce Capacity and Capability.” The report identifies the Canadian isotope industry’s critical skills needs to work towards building a targeted national workforce strategy for innovation in training, education, and collaboration. Following the successful release of this report, CNIC and TALENT will continue our partnership into 2025 to support the next phase of skills intelligence work, additional data collection, and strategic workforce planning.

In 2023, CNIC launched its Isotopes for Hope campaign, centered on the ambitious goal of doubling Canada’s production of medical isotopes by 2030 to meet rising global demand. As a historic leader in this space, Canada has an opportunity to leverage its existing infrastructure and supply chain to capitalize on this economic potential and become the global leader in the fight against cancer.

In 2024, we have taken the Isotopes for Hope campaign to new heights, leading our largest federal Hill Day in Ottawa, which provided CNIC members across the country with the opportunity to meet with elected officials across all parties, senators, key staffers, and representatives from several government departments. This Hill Day provided the platform for CNIC to advocate on the recommendations contained in the Isotopes for Hope campaign, working towards key goals like establishing a National Isotope Advisory Caucus, securing talent and expanding training opportunities, and creating dedicated funding opportunities for the medical isotope and radiopharmaceutical sectors.

2024 also marked the launch of our Isotopes for Hope podcast series, which has become a go-to resource for information on the industry. The series interviews Canadian leaders who are contributing to Canada’s leadership role in fighting cancer and features unique stories and perspectives about the industry’s future in this field. Season one of the series launched early this year and CNIC is excited to announce the release of season two coming Fall 2024. 

The global market for nuclear medicine is anticipated to reach up to $33 billion US in the next decade, which presents a significant opportunity for Canada to grow its production of isotopes to meet this need, export its leadership internationally, and attract new talent to Canada.

Talent will be key to fuelling this growth, and there will be significant job opportunities created across the entire supply chain. Our research estimates that the isotope workforce will need to increase by 33% by 2031 to support all the upcoming industry projects, so developing a sustainable workforce pipeline is key to ensuring long-term growth. Much of the industry’s anticipated needs will be needed in operations, radiation and QC technicians, logistics, radiochemistry, and more.

In terms of export growth, a particular area of the market that is seeing exponential growth is the field of radiotheranostics, expected to represent over 75% of the market for nuclear medicine within the next decade. Radiotheranostics are drugs that can both diagnose and treat cancers by acting like heat-seeking missiles to destroy tumours with minimal harm to surrounding tissues. Radiotheranostics offer promise through personalized medicine and lead to improved patient outcomes with fewer side effects compared to traditional cancer treatments like chemotherapy and surgery. We are in a time of discovery and excitement as new compounds and radiotheranostics drugs are in clinical trials and will increasingly be used to treat a growing list of tumour types. With Canada’s existing production sector and infrastructure, there is a huge opportunity for us to continue to lead in this space with key investments and policies across the supply chain.

Companies in Canada are already working to supply the isotopes that will be needed for these radiotheranostics. Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and ITM Isotope Technologies Munich announced this year the creation of a new joint venture, Actineer, that aims to advance production and secure supply of actinium-225 to allow industrial-scale quantities of the isotope to be produced here in Canada for use in Targeted Alpha Therapy. Laurentis Energy Partners and Boston Scientific have entered an agreement to irradiate yttrium-90 glass microspheres in the Ontario Power Generation power reactor to treat liver cancer. Bruce Power is expanding its work with the Saugeen Ojibway Nation and ITM to produce a commercial supply of lutetium-177 for the treatment of prostate cancer and neuroendocrine tumours. These are just a few examples of Canadian-made innovations that will directly support the global radiotheranostics pipeline and clinical trials around the world.

In the last year, CNIC has been working to establish and strengthen relationships with several key international partners to educate about the important work happening in Canada and to work collectively with the global community on matters like the reliable supply of medical isotopes.

We announced new collaborative efforts with the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency to help ensure the security of supply of vital medical isotopes, which includes plans to bring together government and industry representatives for a series of workshops into 2025 to build innovative strategies to strengthen isotope supply chains. We also signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the World Council on Isotopes to increase information-sharing across the international isotope community and explore new opportunities for future global networking and industry-building activities.

CNIC is proud to represent Canada on a global stage with Nuclear Medicine Europe to provide Canadian updates and highlight members’ recent announcements. Through Nuclear Medicine Europe, CNIC participates in a Security of Supply working group to increase information-sharing on isotope supplies to prevent disruption to patient access.

This Fall, CNIC intends to increase its international engagement even further, with plans to showcase Canadian isotope and radiopharmaceutical expertise through educational workshops at the European Association of Nuclear Medicine conference, and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency’s Workshop on Medical Radioisotope Supply in October, as well as the IAEA Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Science, Technology, and Applications in November.