From the March 2021 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine


"We have been present in China for more than 15 years and are the leading proton therapy provider in China," Olivier Legrain, chief executive officer of IBA, told HCB News. "We already have one system treating patients and two more close to completion. Globally, our systems lead the market in the number of patients treated. The deal with CGN Nuclear Technology Development further cements our position as the market leader in the region, with a commitment to providing the best possible care to patients and maximizing patient access to proton therapy in China."

Mevion and Proton International to partner on two proton therapy centers
Mevion Medical Systems and Proton International announced in September that they had signed a two-system contract to bring Mevion’s compact proton therapy solution to new centers in locations to be announced in South Texas and the Southeast United States.
The new centers will feature the MEVION S250i Proton Therapy System with pencil beam scanning capabilities for faster and sharper delivery of therapeutic radiation to tumors. The system’s clinical capabilities, combined with its compact, lower-cost design, and industry-leading ramp-up time, provide unique advantages in the evolving proton therapy technology market.

“We selected Mevion’s compact system because it has the ability to offer an efficient clinical solution adopted by many major cancer programs while minimizing costs,” said Chris Chandler, CEO of Proton International. “PI specializes in providing custom single-room proton therapy solutions to our clinical providers, and this technology will be a powerful addition to their cancer treatment arsenal.”

Mevion has been selected by more NCI-Designated Cancer Centers in the U.S. than any other manufacturer. In July, another MEVION S250i system began treating patients at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. Another unit at Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah was slated to become clinically operational at the end of 2020.

Black children three times less likely to receive proton therapy than white children
Black children enrolled in national clinical trials are three times less likely to receive proton therapy than white children, according to a retrospective analysis published last August by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Dr. Daphne Haas-Kogan, chair of the department of radiation oncology, and author of the study, first noticed racial disparities in accessing proton therapy years ago while working at the University of California, San Francisco. With few proton therapy facilities available on the west coast then, patients often had to travel far from their homes for treatment, and many of them came from wealthy, white families with the resources to afford it, she notes.

March 2021 Magazine

Read more stories from the March 2021 issue

More Magazine Features

Rad Oncology Homepage