February 13, 2012 – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a multi-year grant to Skyhaven Systems, LLC to develop a production system for 18-labeled oxygen. The NIH desires to have more economical methods to produce 18-labeled oxygen and, in particular, 18-labeled water for use in energy expenditure and body composition studies. This oxygen-18 is converted into fluorinated-18 isotopes to produce radiopharmaceuticals for medical imaging using Positron Emission Tomography (PET). The availability of the 18-labeled water feedstock is limited, costly, and with the growth in new radiopharmaceuticals, this feedstock will soon not be able to meet the demand. Thus, there is an urgent need to recycle the spent singly labeled water during cyclotron operations used to produce the radiopharmaceuticals. During a previous investigation with the NIH, Skyhaven Systems, LLC demonstrated a new process to recover and purify the oxygen-18 labeled water used in producing these radiopharmaceuticals. With this system, a higher conversion yield is possible for converting the singly labeled water into fluorinated-18 compounds. This helps the medical imaging profession increase the use of PET for medical diagnostics, lowers the costs for the expensive radiopharmaceuticals, and maintains a sufficient supply of radiopharmaceuticals to sustain the rapidly growing usage of PET. During this program, Skyhaven Systems and its commercialization partner will develop and integrate this water recovery and purification process into existing radiopharmaceutical facilities.