Gina Rhinehart’s Hancock Prospecting has pumped US$50 million into California-based Lumitron Technologies and its HyperVIEW cancer and industrial X-ray technology, said to be capable of much higher resolution imaging than conventional medical X-ray and mineral scanning systems.
Lumitron said the investment, which could grow this year to $100 million, would help it commercialise its Very High Energy Electron (VHEE) beam technology.
Dr Glenn Rice, a biophysics and oncology drug-development expert and one of two Hancock appointees to a Lumitron technical review committee, said peer-reviewed studies had identified HyperVIEW among the world’s highest-resolution commercial compact mono-energetic X-ray imaging machines.
“Depending on the hardware configuration the technology can deliver between 100 and 1000 times greater imaging resolution than conventionally produced X-ray systems, with up to 100 times lower radiation dose than existing technologies,” Rice said.
“This higher resolution will improve early cancer detection and the precision of treatment. Its VHEE beam radiotherapy capability has been developed to deliver highly localised radiation treatment in less than a heartbeat, whilst reducing damage to healthy tissue.
“In future advanced manufacturing and 3D additive manufacturing applications, HyperVIEW is designed to detect microscopic structural defects at scales as small as one twentieth the width of a human hair in real time, supporting quality assurance and material analysis.”
Rice said HyperVIEW represented the first fundamental shift in clinical radiotherapy in 70 years and “the first fundamental change in clinical and industrial X-ray radiography in 130 years”.
Built on patented laser-Compton physics originally developed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, HyperVIEW had been developed for advanced medical imaging and precision radiotherapy applications designed to greatly improve the speed and accuracy of cancer detection and treatment, Gina Rhinehart said.
“Hancock Prospecting’s investment will support Lumitron to develop its first commercially focused VHEE FLASH radiotherapy machine, a capability that does not currently exist for commercial use,” she said.
“In mining and resources applications, HyperVIEW is designed to go beyond conventional industrial X-ray systems, which are typically limited to analysing the shape and density of materials.
“HyperVIEW has the potential to identify the composition and concentration of minerals and contaminants in ore, allowing mining operators to selectively process higher-value ore, thereby improving recovery rates while potentially reducing energy consumption and overall processing costs.”
Rhinehart said Hancock Prospecting was pleased to have secured the right to bring three HyperVIEW systems to Australia.
The US Food & Drug Administration had granted Breakthrough Device Designation to Lumitron’s breast cancer imaging technology. Studies published in peer-reviewed Medical Physics demonstrated clinically significant (breast compression-free) imaging performance improvements of more than 3000% across breast cancer imaging metrics compared with current top clinical systems.
“The company is engaged with major US scientific and government research organisations, including the United States Department of Energy and the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA], alongside academic and clinical organisations, including the University of California, Irvine and Australia’s I-MED Radiology Network,” Rhinehart said.
“Hancock Prospecting’s investment reflects our view that Lumitron Technologies has developed an advanced technology platform with applications spanning healthcare, mining research and advanced manufacturing.
“I am especially excited about the potential to help patients in Australia and overseas who are suffering from up to stage four cancer, after the equipment has been approved for use in Australia – which I sincerely hope will not be delayed.”
