Advanced Oncotherapy PLC (LON:AVO) said it has raised £5.9mln via a share placing at 40p a pop.
The buyers of the new stock, which was priced at just a 2% discount to the group's average closing price over the past 30 days, were clients of SI Capital, an independent stockbroker.
The latest cash injection will be used to help progress the assembly of the company’s LIGHT proton beam therapy system. It will also be used to fund the documentation, verification and validation activities required to have the technology operational this year.
The company has created a smaller and more affordable proton therapy technology than that currently on the market. The major plus point of this new approach is that it can pinpoint tumours more precisely than radiotherapy, which means less damage to surrounding healthy tissues.
However, proton therapy facilities have traditionally been pricey and large, requiring a space the size of a football pitch to run.
Advanced Oncotherapy has solved this problem. The first instalment will be 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.
In a technical update recently, Advanced Oncotherapy pointed to studies presented to the American Society for Radiation Oncology “demonstrating the superiority of the proton beam generated by LIGHT”.