Mediaplanet spoke with Melody Greaves, Executive Director of the Canadian Nuclear Isotope Council, to highlight Canada’s leadership in the global isotope market. She shares how the CNIC is strengthening healthcare and leveraging Canada’s strategic infrastructure advantage through innovation, international collaboration, and a resilient supply chain that ensures life-saving isotopes reach patients across Canada and around the world.
Could you elaborate on how nuclear isotopes are fundamental to Canada’s healthcare industry and beyond?
Today, nuclear isotopes are vital to Canadian healthcare, playing a key role in medical diagnostics, cancer treatment, and equipment sterilization. Isotopes power millions of diagnostic PET and SPECT scans each year, including over 1 million in Canada alone. These scans provide physicians the tools they need to accurately detect, diagnose, and monitor conditions such as cancer, heart disease, and neurological disorders, enabling timely and effective treatment decisions. Isotopes are also used in cutting-edge radiopharmaceutical drugs that are transforming the way we treat cancers through targeted radiotherapy and precision medicine. In healthcare, isotopes are powerful tools that are enabling more personalized, effective treatments with fewer side effects, driving a new era in oncology. Finally, isotopes are essential to the sterilization of medical tools, helping to ensure patient safety and effective treatments.
Beyond healthcare, isotopes support a wide range of industries through applications such as non-destructive testing, food sterilization, and advanced research in materials and nuclear science. In industrial settings, isotopes help inspect the integrity of critical infrastructure, ensuring safety and reliability. In agriculture, gamma radiation from isotopes is used to eliminate bacteria, pests, and pathogens, significantly extending shelf life and reducing food waste. Additionally, isotopes play a key role in scientific research, helping to develop new materials, improve manufacturing processes, and advance nuclear technologies. Their versatility makes them indispensable tools for innovation across multiple sectors.
Given the increasing global demand and the rapid advancements in nuclear medicine, how does maintaining Canada’s prominent role in the global isotope market contribute to our nation’s well-being and strategic advantage?
Maintaining Canada’s prominent role in the global isotope market contributes significantly to our nation’s well-being by ensuring a reliable and secure supply of critical isotopes for all industries. About 60% of Canada’s GDP is comprised of industries that rely on isotopes in some capacity. In healthcare, a reliable domestic supply helps protect Canadians from potential global shortages that could disrupt vital diagnostics and treatments. Sustained Canadian leadership in isotopes encourages ongoing investment in research and development, generates economic activity, creates high-skilled jobs in science and technology sectors, and keeps Canada at the forefront of emerging therapies and technologies that improve health outcomes and support national security.
Beyond traditional academic and industry collaborations, how is the Canadian Nuclear Isotope Council actively engaging with critical infrastructure organizations, such as utility providers, transportation networks, and specialized logistics companies, to ensure the secure, efficient, and widespread deployment of isotopes across all regions of Canada?
In the last year, the Canadian Nuclear Isotope Council (CNIC) has grown to nearly 115 members spanning the entire isotope production and delivery pipeline. Since its inception in 2018, the CNIC has worked to ensure participation from all facets of the industry, including large-scale producers of isotopes, researchers and scientists, radiopharmaceutical companies, and the companies that help to connect the supply chain from production to patient delivery. Today, the CNIC has a broad range of members within this supply chain network, including companies that provide specialized equipment and services like packaging, logistics, shielding, engineering services, and more.
One of the greatest challenges in delivering radiopharmaceutical drugs is that many have short half-lives and decay rapidly. This means they must be produced, transported, and administered to patients within a minimal time frame, requiring specialized infrastructure and coordinated distribution networks.
Canada’s isotope advantage comes from its strengths in both infrastructure and delivery. Through its work alongside its continually growing membership, the CNIC works with leaders from the utilities, the radiopharmaceutical community, and healthcare partners, as well as the entire supply chain to ensure widespread, timely delivery of isotopes across the country.
With Canada’s historical leadership in the nuclear isotope sector, what new types of international collaborations is the CNIC pursuing to accelerate the development and delivery of next-generation isotopes on a global scale?
The CNIC is the voice of the Canadian isotope community on the international stage. This means that we actively work to establish and maintain strong relationships with key global partners to highlight the important work happening in Canada and to work collectively with the global community on matters like ensuring a reliable supply of isotopes.
In March 2025, the CNIC is proud to have announced a new partnership with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in support of the Rays of Hope campaign. Rays of Hope is a global cancer initiative that aims to improve access to cancer care and radiotherapy infrastructure around the world, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).While isotopes are rapidly becoming the standard of care for cancer patients in Canada and elsewhere in the world, several countries lack the facilities, infrastructure, and trained personnel needed to provide life-saving nuclear medicine treatments and diagnostics. Since Rays of Hope began, more than 20 countries have contributed over $80 million USD in total to start delivering tangible projects and results in 30+ countries around the globe. These projects have delivered essential radiotherapy and medical imaging machines, as well as training for medical professionals to operate the equipment and deliver diagnostics and treatments.
Recognizing Canada’s historic leadership role in isotope research, development, and innovation, the CNIC is proud to be working directly with the IAEA to encourage greater Canadian participation in the Rays of Hope initiative.
How is the CNIC actively cultivating a more integrated and resilient “ecosystem” across Canada’s entire nuclear isotope supply chain, from foundational research and production to advanced distribution and clinical application, to sustain innovation and secure Canada’s long-term leadership in this field?
The CNIC is actively working to strengthen the Canadian isotope ecosystem to increase production, encourage innovation and research, and create opportunities for collaboration across industry, academia, and government.
In June 2025, we were proud to host our largest-ever Canadian Radiotheranostics Leaders’ Summit. The Leaders’ Summit is our annual event hosted in partnership with a coalition of leading Canadian academic centres of excellence including University Health Network, BC Cancer, London Health Sciences, and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, in partnership with the Canadian Medical Isotope Ecosystem. This year, we welcomed over 400 leaders from across the Canadian isotope and radiopharmaceutical community, including both supply chain representatives and healthcare professionals. We were also pleased to feature an expanded student program, a Call for Abstracts to encourage trainee participation, and an exhibitor hall.
Uniquely, the Leaders’ Summit is the only one of its kind in the radiopharmaceutical space that encourages equal participation between academia and industry. Together, we are working to develop a more unified strategy to advance Canada’s role in isotope innovation and access.
We look forward to hosting the 2026 Leaders’ Summit in May in Toronto again and continuing to grow this event even more next year!
