SYNCOR TRADING DELAYED; STRIKE IN CANADA COULD HURT BUSINESS.

Byline: Ben Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

Radiopharmaceutical manufacturer Syncor International Corp. said Wednesday that a labor dispute at a Canadian nuclear facility could hurt the supply of its core products, a warning that caused trading of shares of the Woodland Hills-based company to be delayed 45 minutes.

Workers at Atomic Energy Canada Ltd., which operates a nuclear reactor at Chalk River, Ontario, went on strike Tuesday. The facility is the sole North American supplier of the element molybdenum, used widely in nuclear medicine.

Syncor spokeswoman Mary Meusborn said a similar strike last year lasted six days and cost the company $1.4 million in lost sales.

Meusborn said only two other reactors in the world produce molybdenum. One, in South Africa, is controlled by a Syncor competitor, she said. Meusborn said she did not know why Syncor does not contract with the other facility, located in Belgium.

Other local companies appeared less concerned with the strike. Mike Cutrer, chief executive of North Hollywood-based North American Scientific Instruments Inc., said that while part of his company's supply of Iodine 125 comes from the plant, ``We don't think we're going to be impacted by it.''

``This type of strike occurs routinely,'' he said. ``It's a government facility. The government workers tend to rattle the cage, the government gives them what they want and life goes on.''

Trading in Syncor shares was briefly halted Wednesday when the company announced the strike and said 60 percent of its radiopharmacy revenues come from the sale of products containing technetium, a derivative of molybdenum.