Rutherford Health was a private

oncology Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the study, treatment, diagnosis and prevention of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an ''oncologist''. The name's etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγκος (''ó ...

provider founded by Mike Moran and

Karol Sikora Karol Sikora (born 17 June 1948) is a British physician specialising in oncology, who has been described as a leading world authority on cancer. He was a founder and medical director of Rutherford Health, a company that provided proton therapy se ...

in 2015, with investment from

Neil Woodford Neil Russell Woodford CBE (born March 1960) is a former fund manager and the founding partner of the defunct Woodford Investment Management. Early life Woodford was born in March 1960. He was brought up in Berkshire and attended Maidenhead Gra ...

and the Wales Life Sciences Investment Fund, to develop

proton therapy In medicine, proton therapy, or proton radiotherapy, is a type of particle therapy that uses a beam of protons to irradiate diseased tissue, most often to treat cancer. The chief advantage of proton therapy over other types of external beam ra ...

facilities in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Until 2019 it was known as Proton Partners International. It went into liquidation in June 2022. According to major shareholder Schroders UK Public Private Trust, the company had pursued a "flawed expansion strategy ... from 2015 to 2019" leading to "a high and unsustainable cash burn".

Proton therapy

Rutherford Health ran proton therapy centres in

Newport, Wales Newport ( cy, Casnewydd; ) is a city and Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county borough in Wales, situated on the River Usk close to its confluence with the Severn Estuary, northeast of Cardiff. With a population of 145,700 at the 2 ...

, Bedlington, Northumberland,

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

and

Reading, Berkshire Reading ( ) is a town and borough in Berkshire, Southeast England, southeast England. Located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers River Thames, Thames and River Kennet, Kennet, the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 mot ...

. Equipment and services were provided by

Ion Beam Applications IBA (Ion Beam Applications SA) is a medical technology company based in Louvain-la-Neuve. The company was founded in 1986 by Yves Jongen within the Cyclotron Research Center of the University of Louvain (UCLouvain) and became a university spin-of ...

, Philips and Elekta. The Newport site was the first to open with construction starting in 2016. The Reading site cost £30 million and work began in December 2016, before opening in October 2018. The Bedlington site was opened in 2018. Funding included £10 million from the Wales Life Sciences Investmunt Fund in 2016, as well as continued investment of over £100 million through fund manager Neil Woodford. The

Wales Audit Office Audit Wales (), formally the Wales Audit Office (WAO, ), is an independent public body which was established by the Senedd (Welsh Parliament; , formerly the National Assembly for Wales) on 1 April 2005. It has overall responsibility for auditing on ...

criticised handling of the Wales Life Sciences Investment Fund due to Woodford being the company's main shareholder. Proton Partners secured £30 million from Shawbrook Bank in January 2016 which it later repaid in full in 2019. The Northumberland site benefited from a grant of £450,000 from the Let’s Grow regional growth fund programme. In November 2016 Proton Partners purchased the Gulf International Cancer Centre in

Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi (, ; ar, أَبُو ظَبْيٍ ' ) is the capital and second-most populous city (after Dubai) of the United Arab Emirates. It is also the capital of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the centre of the Abu Dhabi Metropolitan Area. ...

as part of plans to create the first proton beam therapy treatment centre in the United Arab Emirates. Work began in 2019. In March 2017, the company announced the development of its fourth UK centre to be built by Interserve on the Knowledge Quarter site in

The centre was completed in 2020 and is now fully operational. In 2018 it was announced that work had started on a headquarters for their Rutherford Diagnostics subsidiary. The building was to serve as a research centre, sited next to their Liverpool cancer treatment centre.

Other activities

Proton Partners International incorporated five companies in total, including Rutherford Estates, Rutherford Innovations and Rutherford Diagnostics. In July 2020, the Company launched a membership scheme, "Rutherford Direct" aimed at providing a "cancer only plan" to companies and individuals as an insurance in case of a cancer diagnosis. In June 2020, Rutherford Health partnered with Panthera Biopartners to set up a network of

clinical trial Clinical trials are prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human participants designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel vaccines, drugs, dietar ...

sites. Under the name "Panthera@theRutherford", clinical oncology trials were to be undertaken at Rutherford sites, utilising Panthera's "clinical trial management experience". In September 2021

Michael Richards Michael Anthony Richards (born July 24, 1949) is an American actor, writer, television producer, and comedian best known for playing Cosmo Kramer on the television sitcom '' Seinfeld''. He began his career as a stand-up comedian, first enterin ...

opened the first

community diagnostic centre Community diagnostic centres were introduced into the English NHS in 2021 as part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in England. The intention was to make tests more easily available, reduce visits to hospitals and reduce patient travel. ...

in England, on the outskirts of

Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...

, to be operated by Rutherford Health in partnership with

Somerset NHS Foundation Trust Somerset NHS Foundation Trust is a NHS foundation trust providing services for NHS England in Somerset, England. It manages a number of hospitals providing mental, community and acute hospital care across the whole county. In April 2023, the ...

. The trust was to pay a "tariff price" for the service and was reimbursed for the use of its staff.

References

{{reflist Companies of Wales Health care companies of the United Kingdom

Proton therapy

Other activities

See also

References