SHINE And Deerfield Close $150 Million Financing Commitment To Support Diagnostic And Therapeutic Medical Isotope Manufacturing

NEW YORK and JANESVILLE, Wis., /PRNewswire/ -- SHINE Medical Technologies Inc. (SHINE), a Wisconsin-based company dedicated to being the world leader in the safe, clean, affordable production of medical isotopes, and Deerfield Management Company, a healthcare investment firm, announced today the closing of a definitive agreement providing a $150 million financing commitment to support diagnostic and therapeutic medical isotope manufacturing. The Company’s first product, molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), will address current chronic shortages of the isotope, which is currently relied on for 80% of all nuclear medicine procedures.

“We are enthusiastic about partnering with SHINE to help create a permanent and dependable solution to the industry’s Mo-99 shortage and to work on developing other medical isotopes for therapeutic use,” said Steve Hochberg, Partner at Deerfield. “We look forward to continuing to work with the talented SHINE team and supporting them as the company scales and executes to address this important need.”

Deerfield’s investment will be used for the construction of SHINE’s main production facility, which will start in the spring of 2019. The investment is tranched, based on SHINE achieving milestones. At full capacity, the SHINE facility will be able to supply over one third of global demand for Mo-99. The investment will also provide capital to ramp up operations prior to commencing commercial production of Mo-99, expected to begin in 2021.

“We are excited to sign this deal as we begin construction of our Janesville production facility,” said Greg Piefer, SHINE founder and CEO. “Deerfield is a world-leading healthcare investment firm and is a strong partner that provides important institutional validation of our business.”

Prior to signing the Deerfield agreement, SHINE also closed its Series B funding round, bringing in over $30M of investment through private investors. “The Series B round was largely driven by the support of in-state investors and strategic partners. We are extremely grateful to know that the State of Wisconsin and our industry partners believe in the SHINE vision and opportunity,” said Todd Asmuth, President and CFO of SHINE.

About Medical Isotopes
Medical isotopes are radioisotopes that are used in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) is a radioisotope that decays into the diagnostic imaging agent technetium‑99m (Tc-99m). The workhorse of nuclear medicine, Tc-99m is used in more than 40 million medical imaging procedures each year, primarily in stress tests to diagnose heart disease and bone scans to stage cancer. SHINE was founded to deploy a safe, cost-effective and environmentally friendly technology to produce a variety of medical isotopes, including Mo‑99. Roughly 1% of all Mo-99 in the world decays every hour, meaning it must be continuously produced. Current production is limited to only a handful of government-owned nuclear research reactors, the majority of which are overseas.

About Deerfield Management Company
Deerfield is an investment management firm committed to advancing healthcare through investment, information and philanthropy. For more information about Deerfield, please visit www.deerfield.com.

About SHINE Medical Technologies, Inc.
Founded in 2010, SHINE is a development-stage company working toward becoming a manufacturer of radioisotopes for nuclear medicine. The SHINE system uses a patented, proprietary manufacturing process that offers major advantages over existing and proposed production technologies, as it does not require a nuclear reactor, uses less electricity, generates less waste and is compatible with the nation’s existing supply chain for molybdenum-99. In 2014, SHINE announced the execution of molybdenum-99 supply agreements with GE Healthcare and Lantheus Medical Imaging. In 2015, with the help of Argonne National Laboratory, GE Healthcare demonstrated SHINE molybdenum-99 can act as a drop-in replacement for reactor-based moly-99. In 2016, SHINE received regulatory approval to construct its facility from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and signed a moly-99 supply agreement with HTA Co., Ltd., the largest Chinese distributor of radiopharmaceuticals. In 2017, SHINE built the first building on its Janesville campus: SHINE Building One. Learn more at http://shinemed.com.

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SOURCE Deerfield Management Company