A Radium Shortage Just Met Its Recycling Fix

Actineer's closed-loop radium-226 process tackles a supply constraint limiting alpha therapy production.

19 Jul 2026

Actineer, a joint venture between Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and ITM Isotope Technologies Munich, has completed a closed loop process to recycle radium-226, the precursor material needed to produce actinium-225 for targeted alpha therapy in oncology. The milestone addresses one of the sector's most persistent constraints: a global shortage of radium-226 that has capped how fast manufacturers can scale actinium-225 output.

The system recovers radium-226 after use, purifies it to strict specifications, and reintroduces it into the production cycle without performance degradation across repeated runs. Actineer says the approach reduces dependence on constrained global inventories, improves supply predictability and cost stability, and cuts waste compared with conventional single-use production.

Monica Regalbuto, vice president of science and technology at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, said the organization has played a central role in enabling access to radium-226 for actinium-225 production. The joint venture with ITM, she added, is helping establish a reliable, sustainable, long term supply while minimizing environmental impact.

She pointed to consistent product quality and yield across production cycles as evidence of reliable batch to batch reproducibility. That attribute matters directly to sponsors running multi-site clinical trials dependent on consistent dosing.

The joint venture relies on a cyclotron based production pathway, bombarding radium-226 with protons to generate actinium-225, an approach the companies say requires less radium-226 per unit produced while yielding the radionuclidic purity needed for clinical use. Founded in October 2023, Actineer is working toward routine commercial scale, GMP compliant production, alongside longer term plans for a dedicated Actinium Production Facility in Canada.