Deuterated chemicals in R&D and drugs

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) produces regulations designed to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. These regulations have been incorporated into export control regulations in many countries, including the UK, EU and USA. Due to the way these have been written, they unfortunately control even milligram amounts of labelled R&D chemicals, meaning an export licences are often required to export them.

Below I have outlined why this is and what it means. The slides at the end of this page go into more detail

The IAEA regulations means any chemicals with more than 1:5000 deuterium to hydrogen atoms are considered "enriched" and require a degree of monitoring by national authorities. This limit has been transcribed into national export control regulations, usually requiring them to have an export licence.

The issue with this, for non-nuclear use, within life sciences and R&D, is that almost every deuterium labelled chemical is considered enriched by these regulations

In summary this means

• Export of deuterated chemicals for non-nuclear use from the EU or UK requires an export licence (usually a general licence)
• A licence is required for movements between the EU and UK (with Northern Ireland exemptions)
• Movement of those chemicals within the EU do not require a licence
• Movement of those chemicals within the UK do not require a licence (including Northern Ireland)
• Export from the USA to many countries (but excluding China or Israel) do not require licences, or have a lower licencing requirement. However, even in these cases, you should be careful about re-export to places such as China and Israel (amongst others)

• The USA have exempted most licencing requirements for non-nuclear use.
  

You can read more about this, regulators responses to this issue and the history of this in these slides.

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