The UK has announced investment of more than £18m (€20.4m, $23.6m) in plans to recycle spent nuclear fuel to create an “evergreen” supply of new precision cancer medicines, offering hope for patients with previously untreatable cancers.

A programme run by the UK’s national innovation agency, Innovate UK, is to invest £9.9m in the “unique” project to develop cutting-edge new treatments for cancer, backed by a further £8.9m from industry, for a total of £18.8m.

The project, led by the United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory (UKNNL) and Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC), a national UK service that helps accelerate drug discovery, will use a radionuclide called lead-212 to create treatments called targeted alpha therapies.