HIL Applied Medical and Proton International Awarded $900K Grant
From the BIRD Foundation to Advance An Ultra-Compact, Affordable Proton Beam Therapy Solution for Cancer
Jerusalem, Israel and Alpharetta, Georgia, Jan. 19, 2022
HIL Applied Medical, a global leader in developing a new class of Proton Therapy systems, together with its partner Proton International (P.I.), announced today that the companies have been awarded a $900K grant from the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation. The BIRD Foundation supports cooperation between U.S. and Israeli companies for developing joint products or technologies in a wide range of technology sectors that are of mutual benefit to the U.S. and Israel.
The grant will support HIL and P.I.'s combined efforts to finalize system and facility development towards a world-first installation of HIL's Proton Therapy system in a P.I Proton Center to be developed in the future. It will also be used to develop a complete financing and marketing kit, and a go-to-market plan for further commercialization by the two partners. Once commercialized, radiation oncologists and their patients in the US, Israel and world-wide will obtain a the benefits of proton therapy at a more affordable cost improving patient survival and quality of life.
“The selected projects include breakthrough innovations that will benefit from both the U.S.-Israel partnerships and the risk-sharing funding mechanism provided by the BIRD Foundation”, said Dr. Eitan Yudilevich, Executive Director of the BIRD Foundation. “We congratulate HIL and Proton International for their partnership and achievement.”
"The grant and support from the BIRD Foundation represent an important milestone for HIL," said Sagi Brink-Danan, HIL's CEO. "We are committed to developing and commercializing the world's first and only laser-based, nanotech-enabled proton therapy system. Our ground-breaking technology, based on Nobel-Prize-wining advancements, combined with P.I.'s unique expertise in proton therapy facility design, construction, and operations, represents a significant step forward for proton therapy treatments."
"This partnership perfectly aligns with our mission to advance proton therapy worldwide," said PI's CEO Chris Chandler, "We are excited to begin this project and partnership that will ultimately bring proton therapy closer to those who need it most."
About HIL Applied Medical
HIL is developing ultra-compact, high-performance systems for cancer Proton Therapy (P.T.). HIL's advanced particle accelerator and beamline technologies aim to make P.T. widely accessible, treating over a million patients annually and creating a market potential of over $2B/year. HIL's technology originated in breakthroughs achieved at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, and is based on Nobel-Prize-winning (physics, 2018) laser technology. HIL has a working prototype and has demonstrated proton acceleration to clinical energies and flux – sufficient to treat several types of cancer. In addition, ultra-compact beamlines for delivering the beam of high-energy protons to the tumor are under development in collaboration with CERN (Geneva) and top scientists from academia and the industry. HIL is building a world-first Alpha system at its new R&D and manufacturing facility in Jerusalem and is gearing up towards early commercialization in both Israel and abroad as early as this year.
About Proton International (U.S. partner)
P.I. was formed in 2013 to expand patient access to proton therapy. The main barrier to entry has been the excessive costs related to establishing a center and the overall complexity of the project. The P.I. team has deep experience designing, developing, building, and opening multiple proton centers across the USA and Europe. The fundamental goal of our company is to simplify the equipment and construction envelope, so overall costs are reduced, and the technology can become more available to those who need it. The P.I. design, development and construction team has been together longer and completed more centers than any other team in proton therapy. These centers were complete design-build approaches under the direction of P.I. team members, which opened on time and changed the industry standard of completing centers in record times of less than 24 months from break ground to the first patient. In addition, the subsequent operations of these facilities by members of the P.I. team provided the platform for the P.I. team to learn first-hand how operations and clinical programs must influence the design and build of future centers.