Treatment against cancer: AREVA launches construction of the Maurice Tubiana laboratory to produce Lead-212 

Press release

GROUP / AREVA MED

May 31, 2011

AREVA launches the construction of a laboratory to produce medical quality Lead-212 at the Bessines-sur-Gartempe site in the Limousin (France).

AREVA Med, an AREVA subsidiary bringing the project within the group, thus enters a key phase towards the industrial production of Lead-212, an isotope used in the development of promising treatments against cancer.

The laboratory, the only one of its kind in the world, will begin production in 2013. It will be named after Professor Maurice Tubiana, a member of the Academy of Science whose work on cancer is a worldwide reference. 

Anne Lauvergeon, AREVA CEO, stated that "Constructing the Maurice Tubiana laboratory reflects AREVA’s determination to make innovative therapies for the treatment of cancers available as soon as possible to both doctors and patients. The therapeutic potential of Lead-212 extracted from spent nuclear fuel was discovered by our employees, which generates pride within the group".

The official launch of the construction of the new laboratory follows on the authorization granted to AREVA Med by the American authorities in January 2011 to begin the first clinical trials of a new treatment with Lead-212.

Innovation in nuclear medicine is related mainly to the availability of medical quality isotopes. With the Maurice Tubiana laboratory, the production of the rare Lead-212 isotope should make it possible to treat the most aggressive forms of cancer.