Nuclear Medicine "Hot War": Why is AstraZeneca Betting on Guangzhou?

Ask AI · How can localizing nuclear medicine raw materials break the supply bottleneck?

Southern Finance reporter Zhang Yixin, Guangzhou report

After ADC (antibody-drug conjugates), nuclear medicine is becoming the hottest segment in the global biopharmaceutical market.

Novartis’s Pluvicto (a nuclear medicine for prostate cancer cells) achieved full-year sales of $1.99B in 2025, with two consecutive years of 42% year-over-year growth in global sales. It is the first nuclear medicine to break the $1 billion mark globally. This confirms the commercial potential of nuclear medicine—within just two years, multinational pharmaceutical companies have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the nuclear medicine field.

Fortune Global 500 company AstraZeneca is also a key player. Its FPI-2265 (a prostate cancer targeted therapy based on actinium-225), obtained through the acquisition of Fusion Pharmaceuticals, is seen as a benchmark product for the next generation of nuclear medicines. In March, AstraZeneca announced that it would build a radioconjugate drug (RDC) production and supply base in the Huangpu District and the Guangzhou Economic Development Zone of Guangzhou. Introducing it into Guangzhou and achieving localized production has become an important step in AstraZeneca’s布局 (layout) in China.

In China’s domestic nuclear medicine sector, Sichuan and Zhejiang moved early and fast. They were among the first provinces to issue action plans for high-quality nuclear medicine healthcare. Sichuan has now formed a “four-in-one” nuclear medicine full-industry-chain development chain centered on Chengdu, Leshan, Mianyang, and Luzhou. Neurit Medical, a local enterprise in Chengdu, completed nearly CNY 800 million in its Series D financing and is now pushing to list on the A-share market. Haiyan County in Zhejiang relies on Qinshan Nuclear Power to build an isotope industrial park. It has brought in 31 isotope-related projects along the supply chain, including Swiss Novartis, a global leader in nuclear medicines, with total investment exceeding CNY 10 billion. In addition, places such as Shandong, Jiangxi, and Hebei have also laid out nuclear medicine industry plans.

With competition from multiple regions, why did AstraZeneca bet on Guangdong and choose Guangzhou?

The potential of localizing raw materials

The lifeline of nuclear medicines is the upstream radionuclides.

The core raw material used in AstraZeneca’s FPI-2265 is actinium-225 (Ac-225). Xu Diandou, head of the alpha isotope R&D team at the China Spallation Neutron Source Science Center, previously said that alpha isotopes for core therapeutic uses such as actinium-225 had previously relied entirely on imports, and that global supply is scarce. According to materials from the Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, global annual production of actinium-225 is fewer than 2.5 curies, which can only meet treatment demand for about 2,000 people across five treatment cycles.

A shortage of radionuclide supply will directly constrain product capacity. Global biopharmaceutical giants such as BMS and Novartis have also been troubled by capacity shortages. For example, in 2024, the third-phase clinical trial enrollment for the RYZ101 pipeline under RayzeBio, acquired by BMS, was paused because the radionuclide actinium-225 supply used in RYZ101 was short.

This highlights the importance of localizing raw materials, and it is also a unique advantage of AstraZeneca’s plan to build in Guangzhou.

Not far from Huangpu District and the Guangzhou Economic Development Zone, the China Spallation Neutron Source located in Dongguan is the most important high-energy proton accelerator in South China. Last July, the Spallation Neutron Source achieved internationally for the first time the simultaneous extraction, in a single batch, of three high-purity medical alpha isotopes including actinium-225 at the millicurie level, with a radiochemical purity of over 99%, and its quality matches that of imported products from abroad.

The Science Center of the Spallation Neutron Source is advancing the construction of dedicated 300MeV, 100kW alpha isotope production lines. After completion, it will achieve a production capacity at the hectocurie scale per year, enabling raw material supply for nearly one million doses of nuclear medicine treatment.

In other words, AstraZeneca’s production base is right next to the accelerator. This reflects the advantage of China’s production capacity.

“Eighty to ninety percent of medical isotopes nationwide have to rely on imports. This includes projects that Novartis might have started producing locally in China—they may not have achieved true localization either.” A person with inside knowledge who is involved in connecting AstraZeneca’s project disclosed that, at present, the companies that can quickly produce actinium-225 are: first, the China Spallation Neutron Source in Dongguan; second, Neurit in Sichuan.

Besides the China Spallation Neutron Source in Dongguan, in October last year, Guangdong Huizhou had also completed the construction of a high-intensity heavy ion accelerator facility (HIAF). In the future, it is expected to become another important support for the production of medical isotopes.

Once raw materials are localized, it can effectively lower the cost of nuclear medicines. “Compared with reactors, the infrastructure cost for accelerators will be much cheaper.” Nie Huiming, deputy general manager of Guangzhou Health Industry Investment, said. At the same time, because nuclear medicines have short half-lives—for example, the half-life of actinium-225 is about 10 days—the production to clinical application must be completed within a limited number of days. Being close to raw material production sites reduces logistics costs, and the supply chain assurance is more reliable.

Possibilities for cooperation across the upstream, midstream, and downstream

The raw material advantage is the hard power that attracts AstraZeneca to Guangdong; meanwhile, efficient and precise government services are the soft environment that helps make the project land.

The rollout of nuclear medicine involves a dozen-plus departments, including the NMPA (National Medical Products Administration), environmental protection, health and wellness, customs, and the office for civil-military integration, among others. Compared with the production and approval and launch of other innovative drugs, the approval chain is more complex and the professional barriers are higher.

For multinational pharmaceutical companies, a local government that can efficiently coordinate across all departments is also highly attractive.

The most important example is the “release” step in nuclear medicine transportation. Any bottleneck at any stage could cause the drug to become ineffective during transport. To that end, Guangdong set up an AstraZeneca project special team with a three-tier linkage mechanism across the provincial, municipal, and district levels.

Southern Finance reporter learned from Huangpu District that the special team not only convened coordination meetings that brought together all relevant departments, but also confirmed one by one the qualifications of Guangzhou regarding nuclear medicine transportation in terms of logistics and suppliers. As early as 2022, Huangpu had been accumulating experience related to bringing in nuclear medicine projects from multinational giants.

More importantly, Huangpu set up an industry-chain symposium for AstraZeneca’s delegation. “This is something that other places’招商 (investment promotion) doesn’t have.” The insider emphasized that the symposium invited experts from the Spallation Neutron Source, hospital teams, and representatives from local nuclear medicine enterprises—“so that AstraZeneca can see the possibilities for future cooperation across the upstream, midstream, and downstream, and for localization.”

These possibilities for localization are reflected in multiple aspects, including hospital setup, enterprise resources, industrial layout, the market, and policies.

Clinical applications of nuclear medicines depend on how hospital nuclear medicine departments are configured. According to statistics from the Nuclear Medicine Physician Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, as of June 2025, Guangdong has 8 hospitals with the four-tier qualification for using radiopharmaceuticals (the highest level), second only to Beijing.

In the midstream of the industry chain, as the chain-leading enterprise of Guangzhou’s biopharmaceutical industry chain, the Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group (GPH) jointly established Guangzhou Baiyunshan Rare Nuclear Health Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. in 2023 with the Xiamen Institute of Rare Earths in a joint venture, focusing on domestic production of medical isotope localization. The company has already connected with more than 50 hospitals and technology institutions in China.

“Our goal is not only to produce radionuclides ourselves, but also to attract upstream and downstream enterprises to cluster, forming an industrial cluster.” Liu Hong, chairman of Guangzhou Baiyunshan Rare Nuclear Health Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., said in an interview with Southern Finance reporter. Rare Nuclear Health has gathered “national team resources”: it has reached strategic cooperation with the country’s only commercial heavy water reactor under Qinshan Nuclear Power; it also has in-depth cooperation with the Dongjiang Laboratory and the Xiamen Institute of Rare Earths. Its layout spans both domestic and international arenas. On one hand, it will build in Huangpu a center for the R&D and production of medical isotopes with high-energy accelerators. On the other hand, it will set up branch centers in Europe in Serbia and Poland. Meanwhile in China, it will set up production bases in Guangxi Fangchenggang, Zhejiang Haiyan, and Shaanxi Hanzhong.

In terms of industrial layout, the professional nuclear medicine park planned and built in China-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City has already attracted core enterprises including Rare Nuclear Health’s global medical isotope R&D center, as well as Atom High-Tech and Huanhui Pharma, among others. A complete industry chain—from isotope production to drug R&D—is accelerating its formation.

Guangdong’s market potential also cannot be ignored. As a medical hub in South China, Guangzhou can radiate to six or seven provinces and regions, including Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hunan, Jiangxi, and Fujian, covering hundreds of millions of people.

At the policy level, all this is also backed by top-level assurance. The 《Guangdong Province Action Plan to Accelerate the High-Quality Development of Nuclear Medicine Industry (2025-2030)》 proposes that by 2030, common medical isotopes will achieve stable supply; comprehensive tertiary hospitals will basically achieve full coverage of nuclear medicine departments; and 3–5 leading nuclear medicine “dragon-head” enterprises with示范引领 (demonstration and leading) roles nationwide, along with a batch of specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovation-driven companies, will be cultivated.

For Guangdong, AstraZeneca’s arrival is only the beginning.

The bigger challenge lies in how to transform this project into a “trigger point” for Guangdong’s local industrial ecosystem—for example, promoting accelerated mass production of medical isotopes at the China Spallation Neutron Source, building a nuclear medicine logistics network covering the whole country, improving local supporting measures for nuclear medicine review and approval, and cultivating more local innovative enterprises, among other tasks.

(Southern Finance reporter Cheng Hao also contributed to this article.)