AMIC's innovative medical treatment supported with federal grant

After receiving nearly $1.75 million in federal funds in late 2010, Advanced Medical Isotope Corporation ADMD, AMIC, is celebrating a year of increasing revenues and controlled costs. Meanwhile the company remains focused on a life-saving mission of providing domestic supplies of key components in nuclear medicine.

In October 2010, AMIC enjoyed three injections of federal dollars. Most notably, the company received a $1.2 million grant from the Department of Energy for the development of Yttrium-90 microspheres, a form of brachytherapy used to treat cancer with tiny, rice-sized radioactive seeds placed inside the body. Brachytherapy is widely known as a treatment for prostate cancer. This new method would treat prostate cancer as well as radiation-resistant tumors and cancers in the brain, head, neck and liver.

The grants acknowledge the progress made in this field by AMIC as well as the decades of experience and technical expertise of its staff in nuclear medicine and technology. Read from the initial grant here: “Research to Develop and Test and Advanced Resorbable Brachytherapy Seed Research for Controlled Delivery of Yttrium-90 Microspheres in Cancer Treatment”

A new application in nuclear medicine, AMIC's Yttrium-90 microspheres are unique for two reasons. First, the isotope is particularly good for medical uses because it has a short half-life of just 2.7 days, preventing it from lingering in the body long after the treatment has done its job. Plus, as a beta-emitter it delivers intense radiation, but only for a short distance, treating the tumor and doing less harm to healthy tissue. There is little radiation outside the patient, reducing exposure not only for the patient but for medical staff and caregivers.

Also unique are the microspheres. Unlike current brachytherapy media that use metal or glass and linger in the body, the polymer spheres are absorbed by the body and dissolve, “rather like a jawbreaker,” said Jim Katzaroff, CEO and chairman.

AMIC has earned an exclusive worldwide license to produce the seeds using Yttrium-90 from Pacific Northwest National Laboratories, operated by Battelle.

The company is also looking to expand the use of Yttrium-90. Just as ibuprofen comes in pill and liquid form to best suit the patient, the isotope may also be delivered through Radiogel, a substance that can be injected as a liquid into a targeted site where it then becomes a hard gel within the body, filling gaps and reaching areas previously extremely difficult to treat with traditional surgery or even microspheres. Like the microspheres, Radiogel would also dissolve.

In addition to the Department of Energy grant, AMIC also received federal funds in the form of two tax credits through the Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project Program. The first credit of $244,479 was for the brachytherapy project. A second credit was granted for the companies‘Molybdenum-99 project to be discussed in our second installment.