The global market for Radiopharmaceuticals is expected to slump by -6.3% in the year 2020 and thereafter recover to reach US$9.9 billion by the year 2027, trailing a post COVID-19 CAGR of 9.4% over the analysis period 2020 through 2027. The healthcare supply chain is navigating unchartered, rough waters and struggling to maintain pace with rapidly increasing cases of COVID-19. The pandemic has devastated nearly all segments associated with the healthcare sector, such as medical devices, pharmaceuticals and essential supplies. Healthcare organizations globally are finding it extremely challenging to serve patients while ensuring safety of the medical staff due to marked shortage of supplies as a result of supply chain disruptions. The scenario is complicated by unprecedented scale of the pandemic along with few sourcing options and export restrictions. Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, most companies have reported some form of disruption in their supply chains owing to transportation restrictions. The crisis has also resulted in supply issues associated with radiopharmaceuticals, radioisotopes and kits for therapeutic and diagnostic applications. Nuclear medicine and personalized medicine are heavily reliant on the timely availability of radioisotopes. With air freight restrictions imposed, transport of Mo-99, Tc-99m and other radioisotopes remains impacted during COVID times. NTP Radioisotopes is currently operating at below normal capacity as a result of logistical challenges in South Africa.

While the US accounts for nearly half of the market, it relies on three suppliers of Molybdenum-99 and Technetium-99m. In addition, majority of African nations depend heavily on a single supplier of these radioisotopes that are used for cancer imaging. The COVID-19 outbreak has complicated the scenario owing to ongoing restrictions on flights that have severely disrupted global supply chains, prompting participants to ensure reliable radiopharmaceuticals supply for nuclear medicine. Participants are also facing issues in procuring cold kits for simplifying radiopharmaceutical production. These supply constraints along with shortage of qualified staff has made it challenging for countries to perform tasks such as labeling and quality assurance, hampering complex procedures. There are issues related to particular radiopharmaceuticals. While 18F-FDG is extensively used, non-FDG tracers remained in limited quantities across low-income nations owing to their extensive nature, regulatory restrictions and lack of cyclotron. In addition, various countries are unable to access therapeutic tracers including 123I, 123I-MIBG, and 131I-MIBG due to supply and cost issues. The scenario remains challenging for non-COVID-19 treatment solutions such as medical radioisotopes, which are used in diagnosis and treatment of cancer and certain health conditions by healthcare providers around the world. Every year, millions of patients are administered with radioisotopes for diagnosis and therapeutic purposes. With governments defining the medical radioisotope production facilities as 'essential', production operations continued during the COVID-19 pandemic period. Reactors engaged in production of radioisotopes remained operational in compliance with the relevant IAEA safety standards and in adherence to relevance measures to prevent the effects and spread of COVID-19 disease. Reactors based out of Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Poland, Russia , USA, and South Africa, account for almost the entire world production of radioisotopes, and the radio compounds produced in these countries are transported worldwide mainly via aerial route.

In the post pandemic period, pent-up demand for cancer and other chronic diseases will push up demand for radioisotopes. The huge unmet needs and the ensuing massive opportunity for imaging technologies and services will benefit long-term growth of radiopharmaceuticals. Growth during this period will continue to benefit from the growing mainstream interest in nuclear medicine, and the development of new radionuclide's for cancer nuclear imaging and internal radiotherapy. A key trend of the pre-virus period that will emerge to spur gains is the shifting of healthcare from fee based systems to value based systems and the resulting new commercial value placed on hybrid molecular imaging techniques which utilize radiopharmaceuticals for accurate and early disease diagnosis. Development of new and innovative radiopharmaceuticals has and will continue to spur the use of PET/CT and SPECT/CT imaging platforms across new clinical areas including cardiology, neurology, orthopedics, pulmonology and oncology. The epidemic spread of cancer will fuel interest in non-invasive tumor receptor imaging thereby pushing up the significance of molecular imaging for its ability to enable better understanding of tumor biology so as to develop more personalized and targeted treatment regimes. Other growth drivers will include growing incidence of cardiovascular diseases and new launch of cardiac radiopharmaceuticals such as flurpiridaz f-18 and ammonia n-13 in the field of cardiovascular disease imaging; expected developments in non-reactor based production of tc-99m in a bid to overcome production challenges of Tc-99m; growing population and healthcare burden; pressing need for effective healthcare solutions; government policy led focus on healthcare infrastructure development; and concerted efforts taken to promote nuclear medicine in emerging Asian economies grappling with the economic challenges of providing affordable healthcare.