Advanced Oncotherapy (AIM: AVO ) will raise £7.7m before expenses at 30p each in order to ensure its first LIGHT proton beams technology system is fully operational in 2021. 

The proceeds will contribute towards funding for progressing the assembly, documentation, verification and validation activities for its first LIGHT system, an affordable proton beam therapy system, as well as further strengthening the company’s balance sheet.  

"We are pleased to announce this additional fundraising, which brings the total we have raised this year to £22.6 million, and we thank our new and existing shareholders for their support of the company,” said Nicolas Serandour, CEO of Advanced Oncotherapy. 

He added, “Despite the delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic we have made strong progress with construction in Daresbury and remain on track to have a fully operational LIGHT system with a 230MeV beam, which is required to treat patients, in 2021." 

The Company’s LIGHT technology is based on work by “ADAM”, which Advanced Oncotherapy bought in 2013 from CERN, the world’s largest scientific research centre. 

AVO is currently working on the verification and validation phase, prior to LIGHT being used on the first patients to support CE marking. The technology, which is ‘de-risked’ already, will be used to accelerate the proton beam in a different way from conventional PT systems.  

Shares in Advanced Oncotherapy have increased 36% in the past three months to open this morning 14.86% lower at 31.5p following the announcement.  

The modular feature of the group’s LIGHT system offers hospitals and treatment centres the flexibility to customise cancer treatment plans based on a wide range of energies.  

According Hardman and Co. research LIGHT has a number of cost, operational and clinical advantages, being more compact, modular in design and requiring much lower radiation shielding than conventional systems, and which can be fitted into existing buildings. 

During H120, AVO continued to advance LIGHT in anticipation of its CE marking in the coming months, despite the challenges posed by the unforeseeable COVID-19 pandemic. 

During the period, AVO signed a number of commercial partnership agreements and made its first sale, ‘highlighting that the development of LIGHT is approaching its final stages.’ 

The first patient is expected to be treated at Harley Street next year where AVO recently signed a memorandum of understanding to operate the first commercial LIGHT facility. 

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