Orano Med breaks ground on $265M thorium production site
Orano Med, a subsidiary of the Orano Group, has broken ground on a new thorium extraction facility located in France. Once operational, the manufacturing site will be the world’s first dedicated to the production of thorium-228, a precursor to lead-212, a radioisotope necessary for cancer treatments.
The plant’s construction is part of a larger project called France 2030, which aims to bolster the country’s health and industrial capacities. Orano Med said in a statement that it received €22 million (approximately $23.3 million) in public funding to support the facility's construction.
The project represents a total investment of approximately €250 million (approximately $265 million), with Orano Med adding that the completed plant should lead to the creation of roughly 100 jobs.
Demand for lead-212 is rising globally, as the radioisotope is used to precisely target and kill cancer cells due to its radioactive properties. The development of this isotope and other radiopharmaceuticals has been difficult to achieve on an industrial scale, due to the challenges of mass-producing thorium-228 in a secure laboratory environment.
This new Orano Med plant, aptly named the Advanced Thorium Extraction Facility, will supply all alpha therapy labs that manufacture lead-212 for cancer treatments across the globe, the company said. Treatments developed by Orano Med also require a stable supply of lead-212.
The company has its own drug for alpha therapy, AlphaMedix, which is currently in Phase II clinical trials as a cancer treatment.
“We are convinced that radioligand therapies will soon become an essential tool in the fight against cancer,” Arnaud Lesegretain, CEO of Orano Med, said in the statement. “As the Phase II clinical trial of our most advanced drug, AlphaMedix, nears completion, we are building a globally unique integrated industrial platform to ensure the large-scale production and distribution of lead-212-based treatments.”
The 7,000-square-meter thorium manufacturing facility is set to open in 2027.
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