On 24 May 2019, ARPANSA’s CEO, Dr Carl-Magnus Larsson amended a licence issued to the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) to operate the ANSTO Nuclear Medicine (ANM) facility.
The amendment enables ANSTO to commence routine production of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) in the ANM facility for Australian and international markets.
Mo-99 is the parent isotope of technetium-99m, a medical isotope used for diagnostic imaging of cancer tumours and undertaking organ function studies such as in cardiac and renal imaging.
On 12 April 2018, the CEO of ARPANSA issued a licence to ANSTO authorising it to operate the ANM facility for the purpose of ‘hot’ commissioning only. Licence condition 8 specified minimum requirements that would need to be fulfilled before routine operations for the supply of nuclear medicine to the Australian and international markets could commence.
On 12 March 2019, ANSTO submitted an application under section 63 of the ARPANS regulations to remove Licence Condition 8 in order to commence routine operations. ARPANSA officers reviewed this submission and made recommendations to the CEO to remove the licence condition. Taking this assessment into account, the CEO of ARPANSA was assured that the actions taken by ANSTO satisfy licence condition 8 and he amended the licence to remove it. Licence condition 8 will now be replaced by a new licence condition which requires ANSTO to update its risk assessment using a revised methodology for the ANM facility by April 2020.
You can read the CEO of ARPANSA’s Statement of Reasons.
