Radioactive agreement for Sirtex

Sirtex Medical has entered into an agreement with German-based AEA Technology, a supplier of radioactive products, to assist in distributing their SIR-Spheres internationally.

Dr Colin Sutton, CEO of Sirtex Medical, said that the agreement with AEAT will strengthen Sirtex's position for introducing its revolutionary therapies into the northern hemisphere markets.

AEAT has a manufacturing facility in the US, which will assist Sirtex in supplying SIR-Spheres directly to the US market with the necessary regulatory approval.

A company report said the alliance is also a risk-management strategy to ensure that Sirtex is able to maintain continuity of its supply of the radioisotope Yttrium 90.

When the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor was temporarily shut down for routine maintenance in April this year, the SIR-Sphere radioisotopes had to be temporarily manufactured from an alternate overseas reactor. This sort of supply problem would be overcome once AEAT is supplying Yttrium-90 to Sirtex, according to the report. At present, Australian Radioisotopes, based at Lucas Heights, is Sirtex's supplier.

New versions of the SIR-spheres are also being developed and trialled through collaborations between the AEAT facility in Germany and the Lucas Heights-based Australian Radioisotopes.

Kiara Bechta-Metti, analyst at Deutsche Bank, said the agreement was good news for Sirtex because, as the half-life of the radioisotope is short, the company needed a US provider to get into the market there.

"They (SIR-Spheres) are selling a little but so far there is too little turn out to know what the take-up rate will be," she said.

SIR-Spheres are used for the treatment of liver cancer. The microspheres are injected into a patient and travel via the blood to the site of the tumour. Once trapped within the tumour, they destroy it, leaving most of the surrounding tissue unaffected.