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A promising cancer therapy, in which the SCK CEN nuclear research center in Mol is participating, depends on ElektroKhimPribor (EKP), the most important Russian nuclear weapons company and a subsidiary of the Russian state-owned company Rosatom. This was evident from a survey on Saturday by De Tijd, the Swedish newspaper Expressen and the Dutch NOS/Nieuwsuur.
Saturday, December 16, 2023 at 8:17 AM
EKP was already used for the storage of nuclear weapons in the 1950s. The Russian state news agency TASS confirmed this year that EKP, as a subsidiary of Rosatom, supplies nuclear weapons ammunition for Russian armed forces. However, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian nuclear weapons company continued to receive orders from the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden, among others, De Tijd reports.
The data collected by the media in their investigation shows that the Dutch company TerThera purchased from EKP for more than 30 million euros from May 2022 to March 2023. These were “stable isotopes for medical and laboratory purposes”. More specifically, the isotope ytterbium-176 has been supplied via the Dutch company to European pharmaceutical companies for an existing therapy against prostate cancer (with lutetium-177), which is also used to treat patients in Belgian hospitals.
TerThera concluded a collaboration agreement with SCK CEN in June to develop a promising targeted cancer therapy with terbium-161. According to the Dutch company, the raw material required for that treatment, gadolinium-160, can only be purchased from EKP. TerThera purchased the raw material before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but if the stock is exhausted, the company will have to turn to EKP again.
Do not purchase in Russia
SCK CEN in Mol cut all ties with Russia after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, De Tijd points out. “But as far as we know, Russia is the only source for these isotopes,” SCK Director General Peter Baeten said in the newspaper. “I am absolutely convinced that we must get rid of this dependence on Russia. Many countries think about the safety of their supplies, but it takes at least three years before you have a building ready with such a working installation.”
Baeten hopes that the supply problem will be solved once the cancer therapy can be applied on a large scale. “It is not the intention that SCK CEN will purchase this material in Russia, and certainly not now,” he says. But he emphasizes that the technology that SCK CEN has in-house actually guarantees more autonomy. When the necessary isotope (terbium-161) is separated, the rare raw material (gadolinium-160) is preserved as much as possible thanks to this technique for reuse.