BWX Technologies (BWXT) announced a definitive agreement to sell its medical business to private equity firm Nordic Capital in a deal valued up to $800m. The divestiture includes BWXT Medical and Kinectrics’ stable medical isotopes business. BWXT maintains a meaningful minority stake and continues providing specialised isotope and radiochemical expertise under a long-term supply arrangement.
The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close by the end of 2026. Solomon Partners served as financial advisor to BWXT, with Stikeman Elliott as legal counsel. Kirkland & Ellis LLP and McCarthy Tétrault represented Nordic Capital.
BWXT said the sale will enable it to concentrate resources and capital on accelerating growth in its core nuclear national security and commercial nuclear power markets, which are central to the company’s long-term strategy. Under Nordic Capital’s ownership, the medical business is expected to be well-positioned to scale, expand capabilities and advance its market presence in radiopharmaceuticals, including developing, manufacturing and delivering products for diagnostic imaging and radiotherapeutic treatments.
“Since acquiring the medical business in 2018, we have roughly tripled revenue, improved profitability and significantly expanded the product portfolio, including novel therapeutic isotopes,” said BWXT President & CEO Rex D Geveden. “As the business enters its next phase, this transaction provides an opportunity for the medical team to grow under an owner deeply committed to the healthcare sector, as we concentrate management resources and capital on our core businesses in nuclear national security and nuclear power. We are very pleased to go forward as a minority partner to Nordic Capital in BWXT Medical’s future growth given the expertise and deep resources they bring to this business and the market.”
Christian Hedegaard, Partner at Nordic Capital Advisors noted: “Nordic Capital sees significant potential to scale the business and expand access to cutting-edge radiopharmaceutical therapy. Nordic Capital has a long track record of successful investments across both pharmaceuticals and life sciences, and radiopharmaceuticals sit squarely at the intersection of the two. That sector depth, combined with strong conviction in the BWXT Medical team’s capabilities, created a strong foundation for this partnership.”
BWXT Medical was established to leverage BWXT’s core nuclear expertise to address supply shortages in the global nuclear medicine market. BWXT entered the medical arena by acquiring Sotera Health’s Nordion medical isotope business in 2018. The acquisition merged Nordion’s infrastructure with BWXT’s proprietary technology for manufacturing molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) and technetium-99m (Tc-99m) generators. The subsidiary was renamed BWXT Medical in 2021 to align with its targeted life sciences customer base. Between 2018 and 2026, BWXT expanded the medical segment, tripling its revenue and scaling its novel therapeutic isotope pipeline.
BWXT acquired Toronto-headquartered Kinectrics in January 2025 for $525m to strengthen its broader commercial nuclear operations. Kinectrics operates two distinct divisions – commercial nuclear power services and nuclear medicine and the recent sale splits the company with BWST keeping its power division while offloading its medical supply chain assets.
BWXT is keeping Kinectrics’s massive core business, which generates the vast majority of its approximately $300m in annual revenue. This includes Candu Reactor Services (engineering, lifecycle management, and specialised plant testing for heavy-water reactors) and Grid Ecosystem (large-scale transmission and distribution testing services). Nordic Capital is acquiring Kinectrics’s activities as a critical upstream fuel supplier for the radiopharmaceutical market.
Following the sale of its medical business, BWXT is expanding further its already massive nuclear platforms Capital and resources are being redirected away from smaller medical adjacencies into high-margin areas within nuclear national security and commercial nuclear power.
Nuclear national security (government operations) remains BWXT’s primary, highly predictable revenue anchor. The company is scaling capacity to meet intensifying defence requirements. This includes:
- Naval nuclear propulsion – manufacturing reactor components, assemblies, and fuel for the US Navy’s multi-decade Virginia-class and Columbia-class submarine fleets;
- Carrier procurement acceleration – scaling volumes to align with the Navy’s updated 30-year plan, which accelerates Ford-class aircraft carriers to a faster four-year procurement cadence;
- Strategic microreactors – developing mobile microreactor prototypes and advanced nuclear defence systems for the Department of War and NASA space missions.
With respect to commercial nuclear power & life extension, BWXT is positioning itself to capture the surge in global demand for clean energy and grid modernisation. This includes:
- US manufacturing footprint – leveraging its recent acquisition of Precision Components Group (PCG) to establish its first physical commercial nuclear component manufacturing platform inside the US;
- Reactor lifecycle services – making use of Kinectrics core power division and BHI Energy assets to provide critical engineering, testing, and lifecycle management for North American reactors;
- Refurbishment and extensions – capitalising on the high-volume component replacement, fuel handling, and refurbishment boom as existing utility plants extend their operational life spans.
BWXT is also expanding advanced nuclear fuels and technology licensing. Rather than funding capital-heavy commercialisation directly, BWXT is shifting toward an asset-light, high-tech engineering model. This includes:
- Thorium fuel expansion – partnering via a new fuel fabrication agreement with Clean Core Thorium Energy to manufacture advanced ANEEL thorium-based fuel hardware;
- TRISO fuel dominance – expanding its Lynchburg facility capacity for high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) and TRISO fuel compacts, which recently powered Antares Nuclear’s reactor to first criticality;
- Intellectual property monetisation – licensing its proprietary mPower small modular reactor (SMR) technology to third parties, such as Applied Atomics for land use and Core Power for floating nuclear plants, to generate royalties without full financing exposure.
