The process to determine who will operate the multi-million-euro machine that can help diagnose cancer, and which has been dormant for years, will only start once the facility that houses it is completed, Malta Enterprise said.
It is not in our core business to operate a cyclotron- Health Ministry
“Malta Enterprise is entrusted with delivering a finished cyclotron facility that can be used for the benefit of the local healthcare service. The project is expected to be completed in the first quarter of this year… Malta Enterprise will deliver the facility ready to be operated. The process as to who will operate the facility will kickstart soon after the facility is ready,” a spokesperson for the entity said.
Meanwhile, the health ministry is reiterating that “it is not in our core business to operate a cyclotron”.
Sources said Malta lacks the expertise to run the cyclotron, so an operator would have to be brought in from abroad. One of the obstacles to finding an operator willing to take on the task is the financial feasibility of running the facility.
Radioactive tracer must be used within hours
Cyclotrons are used to produce a radioactive tracer for nuclear imaging during PET/CT scans. This enables patients, primarily those suffering from cancer, to be diagnosed and the effectiveness of their therapy to be monitored. Malta has never used the cyclotron so far.
In March 2021, Times of Malta reported that the cyclotron was not being used and was “still in boxes” at the Life Sciences Park. In the meantime, the country had been importing tracer from a company called Curium, in Rome.
The radioactive tracer has a short shelf-life and must be used within hours of being produced in the Rome cyclotron. It cannot be stored, so it must be ordered to arrive here in time for any scheduled medical appointments.
However, according to multiple sources, there have been several occasions over the past few years when the ordered tracer consignment was not sent, forcing the postponement of hundreds of hospital appointments and, as a result, many surgeries.
The sources said that, due to the limited supply of tracer from Rome, Mater Dei Hospital also imported tracer from Turkey.
Cyclotron bought for €4 million
The cyclotron, the sources added, was purchased for €4 million by Vitals Global Healthcare, which received more than €50 million from the government to run three state hospitals in 2016. In 2018, Vitals transferred its hospitals concession to the US group Steward Health Care after facing financial difficulties.
The cyclotron itself became the property of Mtrace, a company that was owned by Steward and Andrea Marsili, the general manager and managing director of Curium, the same Rome company that supplies Mater Dei with the tracer.
A year ago, on January 8, the government-owned Malta Enterprise purchased Steward’s 237,000 shares – the majority – in Mtrace for a nominal fee of €1 each, according to the Malta Business Registry. The rest of the shares, 12,500, were retained by Marsili.
A spokesperson for Steward Health Care confirmed it had transferred the cyclotron asset to the government of Malta and that it “has made no profit from this transaction”. A Malta Enterprise spokesperson had said: “The cyclotron belongs to the government of Malta.”