RayzeBio's $173M Whitestown Facility, and the Isotope Supply Risk No One Is Naming

RayzeBio, a Bristol Myers Squibb company, is investing more than $173 million to build an approximately 450,000-square-foot radiopharmaceutical manufacturing facility at Anson Industrial Park in Boone County, nearly six times the size of its existing 77,000-square-foot Indianapolis operation. Up to 100 new jobs at average annual wages above $130,000, projected by end of 2029.

The announcement no one is interrogating: there is no disclosed isotope supply agreement. The Whitestown facility will manufacture actinium-225-based therapies, and legacy DOE Ac-225 supply from Oak Ridge has run at roughly one to two curies per year. Accelerator- and reactor-based capacity at sites like Niowave, TRIUMF, and DOE Isotope Program facilities is scaling, but still far short of projected clinical demand. Bayer, Eli Lilly, and Novartis have already locked long-term Ac-225 deals with Niowave, ITM, and Eckert & Ziegler respectively. RayzeBio's $173 million Whitestown commitment is partially a bet on securing upstream isotope supply that is currently uncontracted.

TerraPower Isotopes announced a $450 million Ac-225 production facility in March 2026, targeting a 20-fold capacity increase, but it won't be operational until roughly 2029, exactly when the Whitestown plant is projected to run. That queue will close before the plant opens. Watch for a BMS supply agreement with TerraPower, Niowave, or a DOE national lab, that contract is the real gating factor on whether this facility reaches commercial production on schedule.