Two years ago, I wrote about the troubles that Janesville’s publicly-subsidized SHINE project (to produce the molybdenum-99 isotope for nuclear medicine) was having in marketplace. See, SHINE Fades. Amy Goldstein also devotes a chapter to SHINE in her recent book, Janesville: An American Story. (I wrote about that chapter of her book, among others, in a post entitled Considering Janesville: An American Story (Part 10 of 14).
SHINE – the recipient of millions in public money, and already years behind schedule – now is having so much trouble in the marketplace that they can’t entice private capital without wheedling for even more public money for a small prototype facility:
JANESVILLE—SHINE Medical Technologies isn’t raising money as quickly as planned and is negotiating with the city for more financial help, company and city officials said.
Talks are underway for a city incentive package to help SHINE pay for construction of a prototype radioisotope production facility, said Gale Price, city economic development director….
“It (the prototype facility) wasn’t part of the original plan,” SHINE Vice President Katrina Pitas said. “The (prototype) building is new, and, frankly, the reason we’re breaking ground on that facility instead of the manufacturing facility is that we have raised money slower than we’d intended.”
Via SHINE seeks more financial help from city to build prototype facility @ GazetteXtra (subscription req’d).
There are billions in capital – from all corners of this country – to be invested in American start-ups. It’s years later, and SHINE still can’t entice even a tiny part of that private investment, and so returns hat-in-hand for more taxpayer funds.
This won’t end well, as one might have understood from the beginning.