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Advanced Oncotherapy raising £7.7mln as it makes 'strong progress' on revolutionary proton beam technology

Published: 07:51 26 Oct 2020 GMT

Advanced Oncotherapy PLC -

Advanced Oncotherapy PLC (LON:AVO) said it is raising £7.7mln to strengthen its balance sheet as it prepares to make fully operational its next-generation proton beam therapy technology.

Clients of SI Capital are investing in the business via a direct subscription in shares at 30p each (a modest discount to the 30-day average price).

Advanced Oncotherapy said the cash injection will help as its technicians work on “progressing the assembly, documentation, verification and validation activities” ahead of the commercial unveiling of its LIGHT system next year.

It brings to a total of almost £23mln the amount raised this year to back the ground-breaking cancer treatment.

In a statement, Advanced Oncotherapy chief executive Nicolas Serandour said: "As we highlighted at our recent investor day, despite the delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic we have made strong progress with construction in Daresbury and remain on track to have a fully operational LIGHT system with a 230MeV beam, which is required to treat patients, in 2021."

Advanced Oncotherapy is developing a state-of-the-art, affordable proton beam therapy system called LIGHT.

The technology is based on work by ADAM, which Advanced Oncotherapy bought in 2013 from CERN – the particle physics lab that built the Hadron collider.

The major plus point of proton therapy is that it can pinpoint tumours more precisely, which means less damage to surrounding healthy tissues.

Proton therapy facilities have traditionally been pricey and large, requiring a space the size of a football pitch to run.

But Advanced Oncotherapy thinks it has solved that problem, and LIGHT is being built to fit in the basement of a townhouse in Harley Street, central London. Its modular design, lighter weight and better proton efficiency also help to keep costs down, which should open proton therapy up to many more patients.

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