The Isotope Production Map, Q3 2026: Executive Brief
This brief is the free way to judge a paid map of global medical isotope production before buying it. It carries the supply verdict for every radionuclide the edition profiles, the corrections the edition makes to our own previous one, the coverage country by country, and one complete producer table so the depth is visible rather than described.
What this report answers
- Which of the isotopes my pipeline depends on come out of a single facility with no named backup?
- How do I tell announced capacity apart from capacity that has actually irradiated something?
- Which producers are real today, which are commissioned, which are GMP-qualified, and which have only announced?
- What does the English-language record get wrong about isotope production in Korea, Japan, Russia and Argentina?
- Which countries genuinely produce, which merely have installations, and which have only announced?
- How far can I trust a map like this, and what does it admit it does not know?
5 contradicted, 14 dropped
Of 69 claims carried from the previous edition into verification, 33 were re-derived, 17 held partially, five were contradicted and fourteen were removed. Nothing was carried forward on the previous edition's authority.
11 languages
Beyond English, the producer record was searched natively in Korean, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Russian, German, French, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Polish and Turkish.
What the analysis establishes
A verdict for every radionuclide, and an admission where there is none
The brief carries the supply assessment grid: one line per radionuclide, the verdict only, on a stated vocabulary running from secure through tight and structurally concentrated to deficit. It also shows the isotopes where the public record cannot carry a current verdict, and gives none rather than guessing. That second list is the more useful half, because it tells a buyer exactly where their own diligence still has to do the work.
How capacity is written down
Every producer table in the edition separates four tiers: announced, commissioned, GMP-qualified, and actual output. Where a tier is not public the table says so rather than estimating. The brief sets out that scheme in full before showing it applied, because the difference between an announced figure and an irradiated one is the difference the whole map exists to make.
The corrections we made to our own previous edition
The brief publishes three corrections to the edition that came before it, in full and with their sources: a reactor widely reported as critical that its own operator says is not, a national isotope programme placed at the wrong site, and a facility whose shutdown had gone unrecorded. It states the verification tally behind them rather than describing the process in general terms.
What the coverage actually covers
A country matrix built from four registries, with each country classed by whether production is verified, whether only an installation is known, or whether it is announced only. The brief carries the counts and the map. It also carries the boundary statement: which registries were used, what each one structurally cannot tell you, and which isotopes were tested against the inclusion threshold and excluded by name.
One complete producer table, as proof rather than as sample
Rather than an excerpt, the brief reproduces one radionuclide's producer table in full: who irradiates, where, at what status, and what each of the four capacity tiers says for each producer. It is included so a reader can judge the depth of the other seventy-four for themselves instead of taking a description of it.
Where the whole thing lands
Announced capacity is reversible. Irradiated capacity is not. Most of what the industry calls supply is still the first kind, and the brief closes on the five clusters where the edition finds supply risk concentrating, as headlines with the reasoning left in the edition.
How it was built
Every material statement in the edition traces to a dated source record carrying the source, its publication date, the date it was retrieved and a source tier. Primary and regulatory sources rank first, then peer-reviewed literature, then company primary material; trade press and aggregators are used only as pointers and are never load-bearing alone. Beyond English, the producer record was checked natively in eleven languages, which is what surfaced several of the corrections. Before publication the findings went through four rounds of structured adversarial review, conducted separately from the research and tasked with breaking them.
Heads of Supply, CMC and Technical Operations at radiopharmaceutical developers deciding between producers. Isotope producers, enrichers and contract manufacturers tracking entrants. Investors who need announced capacity separated from irradiated capacity before it is priced as the same thing. Government agencies, national laboratories and research institutes that need the global picture with sources they can check.
Contents
- Edition statement and data cut-off
- The four-tier capacity scheme
- Coverage: radionuclides, countries, organisations and facilities
- Supply assessments at a glance
- The five clusters where supply risk concentrates
- Three corrections to the previous edition
- The chapter list of the full edition
- One complete producer table
- Languages searched natively
- Licence tiers
Producers, agencies and facilities the edition maps
PSI, SCK CEN, NRG and HFR Petten, ILL, ITM Isotope Technologies Munich, TerThera, Isotopia, ANSTO, ORNL and HFIR, IFE, Thor Medical, PanTera, Niowave, NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, SHINE Technologies, Curium, IRE, NTP Radioisotopes, Rosatom and NIIAR, KAERI, KHNP, CNEA, BWXT Medical, Kinectrics, ASP Isotopes, Bruce Power, CERN MEDICIS, FRIB, MURR, BRIT
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The Isotope Production Map, Q3 2026 edition
the full edition behind this brief. 79 radionuclides assessed, 94 countries, 272 organisations and facilities, every producer table on four capacity tiers and every material fact traced to a dated source. 244 pages, 65 tables. From $1,495.
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