4th August 2017
Proton Partners CEO sets out UK-wide ambitions
The chief executive of Proton Partners International, the company behind the Rutherford Cancer Centres, has revealed his ambition to develop a UK-wide network of the cancer treatment facilities.
Mike Moran was speaking in an interview featured in the latest edition of the Wales Business Insider.
Proton Partners was founded to develop proton beam therapy centres, a form of cancer treatment that is relatively new to the UK, with the first such facility developed in Newport.
The centre is currently open to receive patient referrals for chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Proton beam therapy is set to begin next year after the company completed a successful first firing of the equipment earlier this month.
Plans are also in place for £35m centres in Northumberland, Reading, Liverpool and London. Moran told Insider his ambition is to ultimately have enough centres for most of the UK’s population to be within one hour’s journey of one.
“I see this as the most strategic project across the UK in decades. It’s a game changer,” he said.
“There is a great opportunity to build, probably within the next five years, up to seven centres nationally. We then wait for patient load to catch up and then we’ll continue to build centres.”
Among the first backers of Proton Partners was the Welsh Government’s Wales Life Sciences Fund, managed through the Arthurian Fund by entrepreneur Sir Chris Evans.
It has since secured further funding from investors including Woodford Investment Management and Shawbrook Asset Finance.
Moran said attracting the right investors had been key to the development of the first centres.
“We weren’t looking for investors that were looking for a quick return, to get out quickly,” he added. “The Wales Life Sciences Fund was looking at a better future for people in Wales.
“We have managed to attract Welsh physicists who had to leave Wales for a job. Wherever we have a centre, over a three-year period, our economic impact is around £64m in that area.”