By Jacob Moscovitch & Columbia Missourian
•
Jan 27, 2021
Credit Sara Shahriari/KBIA
MU has entered into an agreement with a pharmaceutical company called Advanced Accelerator Applications International to supply a key ingredient in cancer therapy.
The MU Research Reactor Center will provide material without radioactive contaminants for AAA to manufacture a new cancer therapy, according to an MU news release. This radioisotope, which is a type of unstable atom, will be implemented by AAA in new drugs.
MURR has an existing agreement to supply the radioisotope Lutetium-177 (Lu-177) to AAA, a Novartis company, for its drug Lutathera. The drug, which is used to treat tumors of the gastrointestinal tract and pancreas, seeks out cancer cells in a person’s body and delivers radioactive material to kill them.