The Kanata maker of cobalt-based cancer therapy systems said it’s contributing the financing to upgrade an existing facility at the hospital’s Cancer Centre of Southeastern Ontario.
Part of the funding – which will be handed out over a four-year period, with the majority to be incurred in 2010 – will be provided by the Virginia-based CURE Foundation that’s affiliated with Best’s parent company, Best Medical International. Best Theratronics will add on the rest, the company said in a statement.
The firm will also provide its Theratron Equinox External Beam Therapy cancer treatment system to the updated facility.
“We are excited about this significant project which BEST CURE Foundation and Best Theratronics are committed to support,” said Best’s president Krish Suthanthiran in a statement. “The level of Best’s commitments is, we believe, demonstrated with a strong foundation of monetary support totalling more than $1 million, including a $400,000 grant, equipment, software, training and installation.”
The company noted the isotope-based Equinox system will include three-dimensional CRT capability and will be able to provide both image-guided and intensity-modulated radiation therapy to as many as 50 patients per day.
Best has said it plans to allow several hospitals worldwide to have the system without needing to pay initial or operating capital costs, based on revenue-sharing parterships.
The news follows recent reports that both the Ottawa Hospital and the Queensway-Carleton Hospital have been forced to cancel surgeries due to overcrowding.
Best Theratronics’s long Ottawa history began when it started out as a Crown-owned division of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., which then sold the business to MDS Nordion in 1998. In 2008, Springfield, Va.-based Best Medical International acquired Theratronics.
