Blended finance and a low-cost linac to close the global radiotherapy gap
Dozens of countries have no radiotherapy machine at all. Combine long-term finance with a machine designed to be cheap, robust and maintainable where power and engineers are scarce.
Two linked efforts: a blended-finance facility (development banks, IAEA Rays of Hope, philanthropy) that finances radiotherapy centres including training and maintenance contracts over ten years rather than one-off machine donations; and an open engineering programme (following the CERN and STFC initiative for a linac for challenging environments) for a linear accelerator designed for unstable power, high ambient temperature, remote diagnostics and modular repair, manufactured at a fraction of current cost. The two must go together: machines without finance for staff and service become the idle equipment already common in low-income settings.
- Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least · Surgery and radiotherapy cure more people than drugs do, but attract a fraction of the research investment.
- Most of the world has almost no cancer care · Seven in ten cancer deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries, where radiotherapy, pathology, surgery and drugs are scarce.