Hadassah Is First Medical Provider in Israel to Offer Proton Therapy

New compact delivery system will make treatment affordable

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Media Contact:
Helen Chernikoff
hchernikoff@hadassah.org
347-899-6673

Hadassah is using P-Cure's proton therapy system to treat patients whose cancers have resisted conventional treatment. Credit: Courtesy of Hadassah

NEW YORK, NY — The Hadassah Medical Organization, a leading Israeli hospital system, is the first medical provider in Israel to offer proton therapy, an advanced radiation treatment for cancer patients available at only 1% of the world’s hospitals. Through a partnership with Israeli medical technology company P-Cure, Hadassah is offering the treatment at a new proton therapy center at P-Cure’s facility.

P-Cure’s compact proton therapy system – the result of a two-year collaboration between P-Cure and oncologists, physicists and physicians at Hadassah – delivers a beam of radiation that precisely targets tumors thereby preventing damage to nearby organs and healthy tissue.

Until now, Israelis seeking proton therapy have had to travel outside the country and pay more than $100,000 out of their own pockets for the extremely expensive treatment. Through Hadassah’s clinical partnership with P-Cure, patients are being treated at no cost to them or Israel’s health insurance funds.

The compact proton therapy delivery system is much less expensive for providers than standard proton therapy equipment, which weighs 200 tons. The cost to build and equip a single room able to accommodate traditional proton machinery can exceed $50 million.

Lower costs for providers mean lower costs for patients and, thus, greater accessibility. (In April, P-Cure received FDA approval to sell the compact proton therapy delivery system in the United States.)

Yoram Weiss, MD, Director General, Hadassah Medical Organization, and Michael Marasch, PhD, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, P-Cure, were present at a ceremony held today to inaugurate the Proton Therapy Center. Also on hand were Dalia Itzik, chair of the medical center’s board of directors and former Speaker of the Knesset, Israel’s national legislature; Haim Bibas, the mayor of Modiin, where the trail is taking place; and Shimon Sosan, head of the Modiin Region Council.

ABOUT HADASSAH MEDICAL CENTER

For more than a century, Hadassah Medical Center, the medical center of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, has set the standard in Israel for excellence in treatment and research. The dedication, expertise and ingenuity of Hadassah’s doctors and scientists have yielded ideas that created breakthroughs in all areas of medicine, including treatment, diagnostic medical devices and digital health. In 2023, Newsweek named Hadassah a world leader in oncology, the only medical center in Israel to receive that honor, and one of the world’s top hospitals in cardiology and smart technology.

About Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America:

Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, is the largest Jewish women’s organization in the United States. With nearly 300,000 members, donors and supporters, Hadassah brings women together to effect change on such critical issues as ensuring Israel’s security, combating antisemitism and promoting women’s health care. Through its Jerusalem-based hospital system, the Hadassah Medical Organization, Hadassah helps support exemplary care for more than 1 million people every year as well as world-renowned medical research. Hadassah’s hospitals serve without regard to race, religion or nationality and in 2005 earned a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for building bridges to peace through medicine. Hadassah also supports two youth villages that set at-risk youth in Israel on the path to a successful future. Visit www.hadassah.org or follow Hadassah on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads and X.