Radioisotope manufacturer NorthStar Medical Technologies names new CEO

NorthStar Medical Technologies, a Wisconsin-based manufacturer of radiopharmaceuticals and radioisotopes, has named a new CEO.

Frank Scholz

The manufacturer named former COO Frank Scholz as CEO, replacing Steven Merrick who has been in the top spot since 2018. Merrick will still be involved with the company as executive chairman, and Scholz will assume the CEO duties starting on June 26.

In an interview with Endpoints News, Scholz said that his overarching goal is to help patients, particularly those with cancer. Scholz takes over as the company is expanding its offerings and its physical space.

NorthStar currently produces the radioisotope molybdenum-99 which is used in assessing heart disease and cancer, but is growing its offerings to manufacturing actinium-225 and copper-67 which will be used to treat cancer and other diseases. Northstar is also in the middle of building out its site in Beloit, WI to include a CDMO facility and other facilities for manufacturing purposes.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Scholz previously held VP positions at Mallinckrodt and was a managing partner at AlixPartners and a partner at McKinsey. Scholz has been with NorthStar since 2021 and was promoted to the COO role last year.

Scholz said that now his priorities are to finish the projects that NorthStar is working on, with the facility to produce actinium-225 and its CDMO facility planning to be finished next year and kicking off operations in early 2025. Once those come online, Scholz said that the plan is to increase the company’s partnerships and net more customers, suppliers and overall partners.

He also said that the company has around 350 employees but is expected to grow to 500 once the facilities come online.

Scholz is also bullish on the radiopharmaceutical market as a whole, as he is seeing “tremendous interest” in the field with capital flowing in and new companies being launched, which puts NorthStar in a position to serve the market.

“Things are coming together…it’s all about execution in the next 18 months, and then being in steady state production, as you’ll have to do as a CEO you know, you execute on what you have right now. And then you already think about what’s after because you have to prepare for that. So that’s kind of what’s going on in my mind,” he said.

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