BELOIT, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes LLC has hired Lisa Holst as vice president of sales and marketing.
Holst has more than 25 years of sales and marketing experience in the pharmaceutical and medical imaging industries, most recently as senior director of marketing at Navidea Biopharmaceuticals. She joins NorthStar as it advances toward U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of its RadioGenix™ intelligent isotope separation system and its non-fission, non-uranium-based brand of the medical radioisotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99).
“Lisa has a proven ability to launch, grow and support clinically complex brands,” said NorthStar Chairman, President and CEO George P. Messina. “Her strengths in educating, motivating and empowering sales teams and her skill in applying in-depth clinical knowledge when communicating with customers make her a great addition to our management team as we take the final steps toward becoming the first domestic supplier of Mo-99 since 1989.”
Before joining Navidea Biopharmaceuticals, Holst was a consultant to that company’s marketing and medical affairs teams. Prior to that, she was associate director, field sales for Lantheus Medical Imaging.
Holst has a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, Massachusetts.
Edmond J. Fennell R.Ph., MBA, NorthStar vice president of business development since 2013, has retired but will continue to serve the company as a valued confidant and as a scientific and market advisor.
New Processes to Re-establish Domestic Production of Mo-99
Mo-99 is the parent isotope of technetium-99m (Tc-99m), the most widely used radioisotope in medical diagnostic imaging. All Mo-99 is currently produced outside of the United States, much of it in aging reactors using weapons-usable highly enriched uranium (HEU), creating safety and national security concerns and the risk of product shortages.
NorthStar is developing two innovative new processes for producing Mo-99 in the United States. Rather than HEU or low-enriched uranium (LEU), they use naturally occurring, stable isotopes of molybdenum as the target material. The processes create a low-volume, benign waste stream, making NorthStar’s Mo-99 a much more environmentally conscious choice than those generated using HEU.
The company’s RadioGenix system is used to separate Tc-99m from Mo-99 and purify the resulting Tc-99m solution, enabling the efficient, automated preparation of radiopharmaceuticals.
NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes LLC
Based in Beloit, Wisconsin, NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes LLC (northstarnm.com) was founded in 2006 to address the needs of the nuclear medicine market in the United States. A wholly owned subsidiary of NorthStar Medical Technologies LLC, the company is committed to resolving industry-wide supply challenges that have caused shortages of vital medical isotopes, negatively impacting patient care and stalling clinical research. Its patented technologies include innovative non-uranium-based molybdenum-99 production methods, a novel separation chemistry system and tools for the nuclear medicine market.
