| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Traded as | TSX: NDN NYSE: NDZ |
| Industry | Health Science |
| Founded | 1946 |
| Headquarters | Ottawa, Canada |
| Area served | Global |
| Key people | Steve West [1] |
| Products | Targeted Therapies, Sterilization Technologies, Medical Isotopes |
| Revenue | $274 million USD (2011) [2] |
| Employees | 500 (2011) [3] |
| Website | http://www.nordion.com/ |
Nordion Inc. (TSX: NDN, NYSE: NDZ) is a global health science company that provides products used for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease. The company supplies targeted therapies, sterilization technologies and medical isotopes to more than 60 countries around the world.
Nordion is headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and generates about 65% of its revenue from within North America. Nordion generated $274 million USD in revenues from continuing operations in the 2011 fiscal year.
Steve West is the company's CEO.
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Founded in 1946, originally the radium sales department of Eldorado Mining and Refining Ltd., Nordion developed one of the first teletherapy units that used the radioisotope cobalt-60 to destroy cancerous tumours.
Soon after, the division was given responsibility for selling radioisotopes produced by the newly established nuclear research facility at Chalk River, Ontario. As a result, in 1951, Eldorado established a commercial products division (CPD) to manage the isotope business, especially cobalt-60 used in cancer treatment.
In 1952, the federal government created Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), a Crown corporation. Shortly thereafter, CPD was transferred to AECL, where it remained for the next 40 years.
In 1988, ownership was transferred from AECL to the Canadian Development Investment Corporation (CDIC). The company assumed a new name, Nordion International Inc. and was later sold to MDS Health Group in 1991.
In 2010, MDS Inc. completed a strategic repositioning which saw the Company divest its MDS Analytical Technologies and MDS Pharma Services businesses. The company is now focused on Nordion and its targeted therapies, sterilization technologies and medical isotopes businesses.
Also in 2010, shareholders of MDS Inc. approved a change of name from MDS Inc. to Nordion Inc. The Company officially changed its name to Nordion Inc. on November 1, 2010.
The company's products and services include:
Nordion supplies targeted therapies for a variety of cancers, as well as services for radiopharmaceutical development, and clinical and commercial manufacturing.
Nordion's main targeted therapies product is TheraSphere®, which is used in the treatment of inoperable liver cancer. Nordion is also a contract manufacturer for Bexxar®, a radiotherapeutic and CardioGen-82™, a cardiovascular positron emission tomography (PET) imaging agent.
Customers use Nordion's gamma-sterilization technologies to sterilize medical surgical supplies and devices, as well as certain consumer products, such as food and cosmetics.
Nordion is the world's leading supplier of cobalt-60,[4] the isotope that produces the gamma radiation required to destroy harmful micro-organisms. The company also markets a family of production irradiators.
Nordion performs medical isotope processing, packaging, and delivery for diagnostic procedures relied upon by patients and medical professionals.
Nordion offers a breadth of isotopes, including molybdenum-99 used in the manufacture of technetium-99m generators. Technetium is the primary isotope used in millions of nuclear cardiology procedures every year.
The Nordion corporate headquarters are located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The headquarters are the main manufacturing facilities for medical isotopes, used in medical imaging and radiopharmaceuticals, and for cobalt-60 sources and industrial food irradiators.
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, facility is located on the campus of the University of British Columbia. In collaboration with Tri-University Meson Facility (TRIUMF), Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, our facility processes medical isotopes and radiopharmaceuticals.
The Canadian Irradiation Centre (CIC) is a globally-recognized gamma irradiation research, training, and demonstration facility located in Laval, Quebec, Canada. The CIC is operated in partnership with the University of Quebec's Armand Frappier Institute.
Nordion has a European TheraSphere Customer Support Office in Belgium, and Asia Pacific Sales Offices in Hong Kong and Tokyo, Japan.