Canada is a step closer to having hospitals use cyclotrons to produce their own technetium – an isotope vital for medical imaging – by creating a decentralized production system with less risk of shortages than the nuclear reactors currently used to produce isotopes. TRIUMF, the BC Cancer Agency, the Centre for Probe Development and Commercialization and Lawson Health Research Institute demonstrated that a city the size of Vancouver could reliably meet its isotope needs by using a locally manufactured medical cyclotron. Clearing this technical hurdle is a crucial step to meeting Canada’s isotope needs after the AECL National Research Universal reactor in Chalk River, Ontario stops producing the vital isotopes in 2016.