# Build Western ytterbium-176 enrichment so lutetium-177 has more than one supplier

Source: https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-reg-yb176-enrichment-capacity/  
OnCo record `idea-reg-yb176-enrichment-capacity` (Idea). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

The lutetium used in approved prostate and neuroendocrine cancer treatments is made from an enriched metal that comes mostly from Russia. Making it elsewhere would secure supply.

## Summary

No-carrier-added lutetium-177 is produced by irradiating enriched ytterbium-176, most of which has historically come from Russian electromagnetic separators. Demand is rising steeply with Pluvicto, Lutathera and pipeline radioligands. Several companies (ASP Isotopes, ITM, SHINE and others) are developing laser or centrifuge enrichment in North America and Europe. The proposal is an advance market commitment by health systems and manufacturers to buy a guaranteed volume of Western-enriched ytterbium-176 at a floor price for ten years, with a strategic buffer stock, mirroring how vaccine advance commitments created capacity.

## Fields

- Kind: Idea
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Hypothesis: Advance commitments bring at least two non-Russian enrichment facilities to commercial output within four years, supplying more than half of global ytterbium-176 demand, and lutetium-177 supply interruptions to clinics fall to zero.
- Rationale: Enrichment is a capital-intensive, low-margin step whose investors need demand certainty; the clinical demand is now visible and growing, and geopolitical risk to a single-source supply chain is evident.
- Proposed test: Model demand to 2035 with the major radioligand producers, structure a joint offtake agreement, and measure delivered enrichment capacity and supply-interruption reports over five years.
- Maturity: early-clinical
- Actor: industry

## Sources

- Bottleneck evidence (Manufacturing cost and time for living and radioactive medicines): Hernandez, Prasad & Gellad, Total costs of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell immunotherapy (JAMA Oncology 2018): https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaoncol.2018.0977

## Connected records

- technologies: [Radioligand therapy (beta emitters)](https://onco.cc/technologies/radioligand-therapy/)
- drugs: [Lutetium-177 dotatate](https://onco.cc/drugs/lutathera/), [Lutetium-177 vipivotide tetraxetan](https://onco.cc/drugs/pluvicto/)
- companies: [ITM Isotope Technologies Munich](https://onco.cc/companies/itm/), [Novartis](https://onco.cc/companies/novartis/)
- bottlenecks: [Manufacturing cost and time for living and radioactive medicines](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-manufacturing-cell-therapy/), [Most of the world has almost no cancer care](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-global-access/)
- key papers: [Total Costs of Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell Immunotherapy](https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-hernandez-jama-oncol/)

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