Collaboration Expands Capacity for Proton Therapy Clinical Research and Patient Treatments

Varian Medical Systems (Palo Alto, CA, USA) and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI; Villigen PSI, Switzerland) are extending an existing collaboration in the field of proton therapy to offer patients more accurate cancer treatments using intensity-modulated proton therapy (IMPT).

Under the agreement, Varian will also supply technology and equipment to help meet a growing need for clinical research and treatments at PSI.

Proton therapy targets tumors with concentrated doses of radiation while providing excellent protection of neighboring healthy tissue. IMPT, which was pioneered using pencil-beam scanning at the Paul Scherrer Institute and made commercially available by Varian Medical Systems, is a radiation delivery technique that enables clinicians to optimize precision when treating tumors.

“This multi-year R&D collaboration will enable Varian and PSI to continue their productive research activities in the areas of advanced pencil beam scanning delivery systems, on-board imaging, clinical workflow optimization, and accelerator technology to further develop proton treatment technology over the coming years,” said Moataz Karmalawy, head of Varian’s particle therapy group. “Our original collaboration led to the commercialization of IMPT and we are delighted to expand our partnership to develop more revolutionary technologies.”

“Over the past 10 years we have developed scanning techniques for the treatment of tumors with intensity-modulated proton therapy,” added Prof. Dr. Joel Mesot, director of the Paul Scherrer Institute. “We are looking forward to the new collaboration as it will help us to develop more tools for treating more patients with even greater precision while making our technology more widely available to the clinical and scientific community.”

The value of the equipment portion of the contract is approximately USD 10 million and it will be booked in the second quarter of fiscal 2014. CE marking and international registrations are pending for ProBeam, and it is not available for sale in all markets.

Varian’s scanning beam IMPT technology is already being used at the Scripps Proton Therapy Center (San Diego, CA, USA), and the Rinecker Proton Therapy Center (Munich, Germany). Varian also has contracts to install ProBeam systems at six additional sites in Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Russia.

Varian Medical Systems is a leading developer of medical devices and software for treating cancer and other medical conditions with radiotherapy, radiosurgery, and brachytherapy. The company supplies informatics software for managing comprehensive cancer clinics, radiotherapy centers and medical oncology firms.

PSI operates the first compact scanning gantry worldwide for proton radiation therapy of deep-seated tumors. The spot-scanning technology developed at PSI enables malignant tumors to be targeted with high precision deep inside in the body without damaging healthy tissue around the target area. By end of 2011, the PSI compact Gantry 1 had been used to treat nearly 1,000 patients suffering from skull-base, brain, or spinal cord tumors as well as abdominal sarcomas. Among the patients were more than 350 children and young people under the age of 20.

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Varian Medical Systems
Paul Scherrer Institute