The Hindu Business Line : US co to set up cancer cure centres here

The California-based Comprehensive Blood and Cancer Centers (CBCC-USA) will invest about $20 million (Rs 90 crore) to set up cancer cure centres at Coimbatore and other places in India.

After inaugurating the company's first Image Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT) centre in South Asia at Apollo Hospitals here on Friday, the Director (Business Development), Mr Gitesh Patel, told Business Line that the group had invested about $4 million (about Rs 25 crore) as an expression of gratitude and giving back to the people of Gujarat where the Founder-CEO, Dr Ravi Patel, was born and brought up.

The NRI Group would set up IGRT facilities at Coimbatore and four other places in India in the near future, he said, adding the details were being worked out. He, however, declined to identify the other places or the kind of investments, saying these could vary from place to place.

Oncology centre

The IGRT Oncology Center set up by the CBCC in collaboration with Apollo Hospitals, offers cutting-edge technology with precision and accuracy in radiation therapy.

3D tracking of tumour

The Apollo Hospitals CEO, Dr Alexander Kuruvilla, said nearly seven lakh new cancer cases were documented in India annually and three lakh people died every year of the disease in the country. The new technology offers a three-dimensional, daily tracking of the tumour even as it is being removed, without injuring unaffected parts of the body in any way.

CBCC, founded in 1984 by Dr Ravi Patel, has enrolled more patients in clinical trials than even Sloan Kettering, New York, according to Ms Jane Hobbs, Clinical Research Administrator, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

CBCC seeks to diagnose, treat, educate and create awareness about cancer. In Gujarat, it had set up the Krishna Karuna Foundation five years ago with support from the NDDB Chairperson, Dr Amrita Patel, and spent Rs 1 crore to create awareness about the disease in Kheda district.