Varian to install its ProBeam at upcoming NYC cancer center for $115M

Probeam System--Courtesy of Varian

Varian Medical Systems ($VAR) announced it will provide New York's first cancer-fighting proton therapy center with its ProBeam System, as well as 10 years of services, for about $115 million, which would make it one of only a handful of installed devices throughout the world.

The company said the system provides a precise form of proton therapy, known as speed intensity modulated proton therapy. The system will include Varian's information management system and treatment planning software.

The ProBeam is already installed in San Diego, CA, Munich, Germany, and Switzerland. Varian has 9 other contracts to install the device. 

"We are excited to be part of an innovative and cooperative initiative by leading cancer clinicians to provide patients in the New York area and around the world with the most advanced proton treatment capabilities," Varian CEO Dow Wilson, in a statement. 

Varian says proton therapy results in fewer side effects than conventional radiation because the beam stops and deposits its dose within the tumor; it does not pass all the way through the patient. The new proton therapy center is expected to open in Manhattan in the first half of 2018.

The company's international subsidiary, project developer MM Proton I, is providing two loans worth $91.5 million to help finance the $242.7 million project.

Varian CEO Dow Wilson

Recently, the company has been putting an increased emphasis on the software that runs and is associated with its hardware. The oncology-focused company recently launched the OncoPeer platform, in the hope that users will benefit from oncologists' collective intelligence by leveraging other practitioners' knowledge to the benefit of their own patients. In December, Varian said it will acquire Germany's MeVis Medical Solutions AG, a provider of software for cancer imaging, for an expected price of €30 million ($36.9 million).

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