P-Cure, an Israeli company that develops proton-based cancer therapy, closed an $11 million funding round, led by Popular Line Medical Group from Hong Kong. Very cool, but what does proton therapy even mean?

A personalized, and cheaper solution for all

Instead of treatment through standard and more familiar radiotherapy, which tends to harm healthy tissue and cells in a tumor’s vicinity, P-Cure’s P-Artis system utilizes proton radiation for cancer therapy. This means, focus-blasting the tumor with high energy radiation, disrupting the cancer cells, and leading to their destruction. Due to its high accuracy, proton therapy provides a more effective treatment for cancerous tumors.

In contrast to standard proton therapy systems, which require a lot of space, P-Cure’s solution helps reduce costs, coming in a fairly compact size. In addition, the treatment is done while sitting, and not while laying down. This further helps increase treatment efficiency, and is meant to reduce clinical harm from radiotherapy.

P-Cure was founded in 2007 by CEO Dr. Michael Marash, and the current funding brings the company’s total to $41 million to date. According to the company, the funds will be invested in advancing clinical collaboration and enhancing U.S. sales efforts, pending FDA clearance - which should come towards the end of the year. Furthermore, the company plans to create additional clinical data to support marketing goals and is awaiting as well for CE approval.

Dr. Marash explained that “the funding round allows us to make our smart medical solution accessible to all Oncology centers that offer radiotherapy, eventually exposing cancer patients to top quality treatment.”