MAP delivers radioactive medicines around the world like lightning

The Jyväskylä company MAP Medical often finds itself working against the clock. The radioactive medicines it manufactures have to be delivered within hours to those who need them. Fast delivery is essential of these products is essential as their half life gives them a very limited lift cycle.

MAP Medical’s offices are right beside Jyväskylä’s Tikkakoski airport, and this proximity is vital.

– Our products are produced to order and medication is delivered straight from the factory to the patient. Usually they are transported by air freight and sometimes we have to use helicopters, explains MAP Medical’s Managing Director Mika Nyssönen.

The radioactivity of the products also presents its own challenges for delivery operations. Mr Nyssönen describes how, depending on the product, medicines in liquid form dispatched around the world are packed inside 1 – 5 cm thick lead casing.

MAP Medical’s medicines are used mainly in diagnostics; radioactive medicines are employed, for example, as markers in brain scanning. Some of the medicines are also used therapeutically such as for cancer patients.

The logistical requirements of dealing with radioactive medicines impose some difficulties on MAP Medical’s operations. The company’s primary markets are domestic, although they are also delivered to other Nordic countries and to the Baltic region. Some special products are also exported to central Europe.

– The limitations on the life cycle of our products are also a limitation on our operations. It’s simply not possible to deliver radioactive medicines very far, tells Mr Nyssönen.

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www.mapmedical.fi