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Cancer facility to be in Miami Twp.

Company exec says he has secured financing for production HQ.

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By Kristin McAllister and Ben Sutherly, Staff Writers 11:04 PM Thursday, August 19, 2010

MIAMI TWP., Montgomery County — The owner of a world-renowned cancer treatment center has announced plans to build his company’s production headquarters at the southwest corner of the new Austin Interchange.

“I have secured financing for it,” said Jon Slater, president and chief operating officer of privately held Optivus Proton Therapy Inc. in Loma Linda, Calif.

Because of contracts Optivus has with customers worldwide, Slater said his team is “scrambling in designing” the new manufacturing and assembly building. “We have to have the production center up and staffed and running within 12 months.”

The opening of the new cancer treatment center planned for the 23-acre site in Miami Twp. is slated for 2013, he said.

Proton therapy equipment for the new center and for global customers of Optivus will be built at and/or assembled, diagnostically checked, dismantled, then shipped out from the new production headquarters.

“We’re going to be using a lot of local companies for some of the materials, and we’ll draw from the large number of highly skilled labor you have there,” Slater said, adding that he also plans to start talks with the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base regarding potential collaborations.

Unlike X-rays, proton therapy beams can deliver most of their energy directly to a tumor then stop without passing through the body, minimizing damage to surrounding tissue. This allows oncologists to blast the cancer with a higher radiation dose, possibly improving its effectiveness.

Optivus is in discussions about staffing the center with Dayton Physicians Inc. and Premier Health Partners, whose largest hospitals are Miami Valley and Good Samaritan.

Slater also founded American Cancer Treatment System Inc. to run the clinical operations of the cancer treatment center. He said that while Optivus manages the technical development of proton beam therapy, ACTS will handle the staffing and patient care end of the center.

A Premier competitor, Kettering Medical Center, three months ago announced its own $80 million proton beam therapy joint venture with San Francisco-based American Shared Hospital Services. The nonprofit proton therapy center would be built at either KMC’s main campus, or on 42 acres northeast of the I-75/Austin Boulevard interchange. It would open in three years and create up to 100 new KMC jobs.

KMC’s property northeast of the interchange was purchased in December 2006 under the name of Mount Adams Properties LLC for $7.96 million, according to the Montgomery County Auditor’s Office.

If both the Optivus and KMC projects materialize, Dayton would be the first region in the nation to be home to two proton beam therapy centers.

Leonard Arzt, executive director of the National Association for Proton Therapy in Washington, D.C., has said he’d be surprised if there were enough financing to support two proton beam therapy centers in Dayton, or anywhere else.

Slater claims Ohio can “comfortably” accommodate five proton treatment centers of the size he’s proposing.

The Optivus proton therapy center would treat more than 200 patients per day, while KMC’s would treat up to 80.

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