Varian Medical Systems and RaySearch Laboratories have signed a long-term strategic collaboration agreement in which RaySearch will develop advanced radiation therapy treatment planning software for integration into Varian’s Eclipse™ treatment planning system.
The collaboration involves developing a number of components, including radiobiological optimization software, aimed at improving radiation treatments. The first of these components is expected to be made available to clinicians within the next year as part of Varian’s Eclipse™ treatment planning system, which offers advanced software for the planning of radiation oncology treatments.
“We are extremely excited about beginning a relationship with the world leader in radiotherapy treatment,” says Johan Löf, president and chief executive officer of RaySearch. “The collaboration will permit us to offer a number of treatment planning solutions to Varian’s large installed base of customers.”
Jeff Amacker, director of Varian’s treatment planning software business, adds, “RaySearch has developed some truly innovative solutions for advanced radiation therapy planning and radiobiological optimization and we look forward to making these capabilities available to our Eclipse customers.”
Radiobiological optimization enables clinicians to use biological models such as probabilities relating to tumor control and normal tissue complication rates in different parts of the body, to optimize a treatment plan. This is different from more conventional approaches that use standard dose prescriptions, which are surrogates for outcomes, and less personalized to the patient’s specific disease and anatomy. “Using biological models further enhances our ability to design treatments that eradicate the tumor while minimizing side effects,” says Johan Löf.
The Varian-RaySearch collaboration agreement involves radiobiological evaluation and radiobiological optimization of treatment plans for standard photon/electron radiotherapy, intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and proton therapy, as well as optimization of conventional 3-D CRT. The products will be seamlessly integrated into the Eclipse package.
About Varian Medical Systems
Varian Medical Systems, Inc., of Palo Alto, California, is the world’s leading manufacturer of medical devices and software for treating cancer and other medical conditions with radiotherapy, radiosurgery, proton therapy, and brachytherapy. The company supplies informatics software for managing comprehensive cancer clinics, radiotherapy centers and medical oncology practices. Varian is a premier supplier of tubes and digital detectors for X-ray imaging in medical, scientific, and industrial applications and also supplies X-ray imaging products for cargo screening and industrial inspection. Varian Medical Systems employs approximately 3,900 people who are located at manufacturing sites in North America and Europe and in its 56 sales and support offices around the world. In Europe, the company operates manufacturing and engineering centers in Baden (Switzerland), Crawley (England), Haan (Germany), Helsinki (Finland) and Toulouse (France) and has headquarters for Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (EMEA) based in Zug, Switzerland.
For more information, visit www.varian.com
About RaySearch
RaySearch’s business concept is to provide innovative software to radiation therapy clinics for more effective radiation treatment of cancer. RaySearch, a spin-off from Karolinska Institutet, was formed in 2000. Through a licensing agreement with Philips, the company’s first product, p-RayOptimizer, has to date been sold to approximately 1,000 hospitals internationally and more than 100,000 patients have received improved radiation therapy. A licensing agreement was signed with Nucletron at the beginning of 2004 and deliveries of the first product based on this partnership, n-RayOptimizer, began in April 2005. In February 2006 an agreement was signed with Scanditronix-Wellhöfer regarding development of products for improved quality assurance of IMRT. In October 2006, RaySearch signed an agreement with Philips covering the development of products in adaptive radiation therapy. In November 2006 RaySearch signed a development and license agreement with Nucletron regarding treatment planning for proton therapy in cancer treatment.
RaySearch is listed on the Nordic List in the Small Cap segment of the Health Care sector. RaySearch is based in Stockholm and currently has 30 employees.
For more information, visit www.raysearchlabs.com
For further information:
Neil Madle
Director, Corporate Communications & Investor Relations, Europe,
Varian Medical Systems,
Telefon: +44 7786 526068
neil.madle@varian.com
Johan Löf
President and CEO, RaySearch Laboratories AB
Telephone: +46 (0)8-545 061 30
johan.lof@raysearchlabs.com