7^th International
Conference on Isotopes

The Seventh International Conference on Isotopes has finished yesterday in Moscow. Key representatives of the world isotope industry, over 600 leading scientists and business people from 38 countries, discussed important issues of production and application of isotopes in different fields of economy. It was announces at the conference that nuclear medicine is becoming an increasingly prominent priority of the ROSATOM State Corporation.  

The strategic goal of the ROSATOM is to make products of higher added value: “We have to have not only isotopes and radiopharmaceuticals, but also medical equipment production. Ideally, we would like to provide medical services from diagnostics to treatment of cardiovascular and oncological diseases,” announced Sergey Kirienko, Director General of the ROSATOM State Corporation. He explained that to meet the objectives in the field of nuclear medicine development, it has been decided to not to try to do everything ourselves, but to take the road of integration, partnership and cooperation, including creation of joint ventures to produce equipment and necessary components for research and development both in Russia and in the territories of our partners. According to Mr. Kirienko, the first memorandum of intentions has already been signed: the ROSATOM and Philips are planning to establish production of SPECT systems and positron emission tomographs in Russia. 

The volume of the world market of nuclear medicine, that is today 12 billion dollars, is estimated to reach 68 billion dollars by 2030, which is by 5.5 times.

Closing the gap between Russia and the world leaders in the field of nuclear medicine will save a lot of lives, as over the past ten years the number of oncological patients in Russia has risen by 16%. One of the key reasons of this heavy death rate is late diagnostics of the disease at the third or fourth stage. Early diagnostics, therefore, is one of the key factors of effective cancer treatment, which is directly related to the prospects of extending of PET-centers network and providing access to these PET-centers to as many Russians as possible.

One of the tools of Russian nuclear medicine development is international cooperation. “Russia has a unique window of opportunity in development of isotope industry and nuclear medicine. Having solved this problem, we will perform a vital social mission by providing a lot of people with access to a contemporary system of oncological diseases diagnostics and, thus, give them a real chance to overcome cancer,” announced Mikhail Batkov, Director of the program “Radiacionnye Tekhnologii” (Radiotechnologies) of the ROSATOM State Atomic Energy Corporation.

Denis Manurov, Deputy Industry and Trade Minister of the Russian Federation, Parrish Staples, Director of European and African Threat Reduction of the U.S. Department of Energy, Alexander Bychkov, Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Chang Sun Kang, President of the World Council on Isotope, Andre Demel, Commercial Director of Philips Healthcare, RUBS, and other prominent representatives of business and scientific community also took part in the conference.

The key topics of the agenda included important issues of the world isotope industry: nuclear medicine development, prospects of the world isotopes market, , production of molybdenum-99, creation of nuclear technology parks, using isotopes in agriculture and industry, producing isotopes from low enriched uranium and development of international cooperation in the field of using isotopes in various fields of science and technology, first of all, in nuclear medicine.

A special feature of the 7ICI was a separate business program, which happened for the first time in the history of the event. The Russian participants believe that the dialogue of science and business will give a new impulse to Russia’s efforts in the field of isotope industry and nuclear medicine development.

The next conference will take place in Chicago, the USA, in 2014.