Advanced Oncotherapy PLC (AIM:AVO) said its first commercial LIGHT therapy system is fully operational for cancer treatment, having produced a proton beam at 230 megaelectron volts (MeV) at its assembly site in Daresbury, Cheshire.
The company said this was the "most significant milestone" in its history that "validates and de-risks" the proton beam therapy machine.
This next step is that University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) will now commission a treatment room at the Daresbury site, where the LIGHT machine is expected to be used to treat the first patient's tumours in the second half of next year.
Advanced Oncotherapy, which raised another £1.5mln last month, said with its LIGHT system the first linear proton therapy system dedicated to the treatment of tumours where the proton beam is generated in a straight line as opposed to the spiral of traditional proton therapy systems, it is expected to "play a key role in democratising the proton therapy market and addressing a significant unmet need".
This is because of the LIGHT system's small size, much faster speed of delivery and reduced stray radiation, which the company and its partners anticipate the treatment will be more accessible and affordable to cancer patients.
Dr Michael Sinclair, executive chairman of the AIM-listed company, said the first LIGHT accelerator becoming fully operational "marks the start of a new era for Advanced Oncotherapy and potentially the proton therapy market more broadly.
"There is currently a significant unmet medical need in the treatment of cancer and with this latest achievement we are a step closer towards achieving our mission of democratising proton therapy."
He added that the company is hopeful that the validation of the LIGHT system "will prompt further commercial momentum and anticipate this to accelerate the execution of our commercial pipeline, and we look forward to providing further updates on this in due course".
UHB leading the next stage of the process is a pathway followed by all proton therapy systems as part of the certification process, he said.
With the LIGHT system being the result of 25 years of work at the CERN nuclear research organisation and its ADAM spin-off, Prof Steve Myers, executive chairman of ADAM, said he was "delighted to witness the application of this technology into the first commercial LIGHT machine operating at 230 MeV, a milestone which demonstrates that our unique technology works, and we are now keen to progress with our aim of making proton therapy available for many more patients."