Terapet’s real-time tracking of proton therapy dosage-delivery for cancer patients wins CHF 150,000
26.08.2020
Medtech startup Terapet provides a solution that eliminates one of the biggest obstacles in proton therapy for cancer patients: ensuring that every patient receives the right proton dose, precisely located, every time. Terapet’s medical device allows, for the first time, the monitoring of the delivered proton dose inside the patients to provide them with safer and more effective treatments. The startup will use the CHF 150,000 Venture Kick funding to achieve the full potential of proton therapy by further developing the prototype and expanding its team.
 Terapet co-founders Prof. Raymond Miralbell, Dr. Christina Vallgren, and Dr. Marcus Palm
|
 |
Proton therapy is the most precise radiotherapy for cancer treatment. But today, all treatment plans rely on simulations. There is no dose verification system commercially available to monitor the dose during treatment, so it is not exactly clear where inside the patient, the dose is delivered. Doctors are handling this uncertainty by adding large safety margins around the tumor, which increases the damage to healthy cells or results in having to reject patients that could benefit from proton therapy.
Geneva-based Terapet’s technology enables medical doctors for the first time to monitor the proton dose inside the patients during treatment: in-vivo, non-invasive, in 3D, and in real-time. Terapet’s solution provides cancer patients with safer treatment and saves health care providers money and treatment time. Furthermore, Terapet’s device allows both more patients and more cancer types to be treated with proton therapy, and it can be adapted to different proton therapy centers of various layouts with a minimal integration cost. The proton-therapy market is valued at CHF 750 million and is estimated to increase to CHF 3 billion in 2030.
Then CERN physicists Dr. Christina Vallgren and Dr. Marcus Palm and leading radio-oncologist Prof. Raymond Miralbell (Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève) founded Terapet in 2019. Dr. Christina Vallgren is a Venture Leaders Life Sciences 2020.
Terapet will use the CHF 150,000 Venture Kick funding to further develop the prototype, strengthen the R&D activities, and expand its team. “VentureKick has provided us with the business tools and knowledge we never had the opportunity to learn as physicists. The VentureKick program accelerated our idea and made it possible to transform it into a real venture,” explains Dr. Marcus Palm.
Geneva-based Terapet’s technology enables medical doctors for the first time to monitor the proton dose inside the patients during treatment: in-vivo, non-invasive, in 3D, and in real-time. Terapet’s solution provides cancer patients with safer treatment and saves health care providers money and treatment time. Furthermore, Terapet’s device allows both more patients and more cancer types to be treated with proton therapy, and it can be adapted to different proton therapy centers of various layouts with a minimal integration cost. The proton-therapy market is valued at CHF 750 million and is estimated to increase to CHF 3 billion in 2030.
Then CERN physicists Dr. Christina Vallgren and Dr. Marcus Palm and leading radio-oncologist Prof. Raymond Miralbell (Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève) founded Terapet in 2019. Dr. Christina Vallgren is a Venture Leaders Life Sciences 2020.
Terapet will use the CHF 150,000 Venture Kick funding to further develop the prototype, strengthen the R&D activities, and expand its team. “VentureKick has provided us with the business tools and knowledge we never had the opportunity to learn as physicists. The VentureKick program accelerated our idea and made it possible to transform it into a real venture,” explains Dr. Marcus Palm.