Large-scale production of ³²P for its clinical use in palliative care of painful bone metastasis in the form of Na₃[³²P]PO₄ (³²P-sodium orthophosphate) has been practiced for six decades. The classical route of production of ³²P by (n,p) reaction on high purity elemental sulfur yields no-carrier-added (NCA) ³²P. Since high specific activity ³²P is not essential for the formulation of Na₃[³²P]PO₄ for bone pain palliation, an alternate route of production of ³²P by direct neutron capture using elemental phosphorus target [³¹P(n,γ)³²P] was envisaged and its suitability for use in bone pain palliation was evaluated. Toward this, irradiation of elemental red phosphorus target was carried out at a neutron flux of 8 x 1013 n/cm².s for 60 days and this yielded ³²P with a specific activity of 230 ± 15MBq/mg (6.2 ± 0.4 mCi/mg) having > 99.9% radionuclidic purity. About 370–555MBq (10–15 mCi) doses of Na3[³²P]PO4 were formulated in sterile saline (pH 7.4) using the ³²P produced. The radiochemical purity of the formulation was found to be ~99% with respect to PO₄^3- . The formulation exhibited good in vitro stability in saline and in human serum. Biodistribution studies carried out in normal Wistar rats revealed comparable pharmacokinetic properties of the formulation prepared using (n,γ) produced ³²P with that of NCA ³²P produced by (n,p) route. Besides having the advantages of simplicity in radiochemical processing and minimum radioactive waste generation, use of the proposed production route in place of the traditional ³²S(n,p)³²P route would result in better utilization of irradiation volume of research reactors.