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Madison companies win federal grants to produce substance for heart care

Madison could be the only U.S. location producing technetium-99m, a substance that is in cardiac stress tests and cancer scans performed on tens of thousands of patients every day, and is in short supply worldwide. Two area companies, in separate arrangements, won the only two federal allocations announced Monday to manufacture the medical isotope molybdenum-99 which, when it decays, produces technetium-99m. One of the proposals is a partnership with UW-Madison, state of Wisconsin, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and Phoenix Nuclear Labs in Middleton.