A Big Upgrade for Varian Medical Systems

• Report this Comment On July 24, 2009, at 5:41 PM, PauvrePapillon wrote:

  Dave Mock may be an expert on wireless technologies but he really ought to do his homework before writing any more articles about therapeutic radiation devices.

  Varian’s RapidArc provides no competition whatsoever for Accuray. RapidArc is not even a radiosurgical technology. It is an enhancement of a radiotherapy technology.

  From Varian’s own marketing materials:

  “RapidArc is a volumetric arc therapy that delivers a precisely sculpted 3D dose distribution with a single 360-degree rotation of the linear accelerator gantry. It is made possible by a treatment planning algorithm that simultaneously changes three parameters during treatment: rotation speed of the gantry, shape of the treatment aperture using the movement of multileaf collimator leaves delivery dose rate.”

  Like all gantry-based radiation devices, RapidArc enhances machines that operate from a single-plane and therefore cannot produce the complex, multiplaner treatment patterns achievable only with CyberKnife.

  CyberKnife remains the world's only robotic radiosurgery system designed to treat tumors anywhere in the body non-invasively. It uses continual image guidance technology and computer controlled robotic mobility to automatically track, detect and correct for tumor and patient movement in real-time throughout the treatment.

  By failing to understand the difference between gantry-based radiation sprayers and the robotically controlled CyberKnife, Mock is promulgating the same misinformation that Varian has used to try to confuse the market concerning these technologies.

  When the market (correctly) understood that CyberKnife is a truly unique and revolutionary technology, investors bid Accuray’s post-IPO shares up to an intraday high of $31.09 (9 February 2007). As Varian and others (including perhaps well-meaning but misinformed fools like Dave Mock) made repeated claims, in numerous press releases, interviews and conference calls, that their gantry-mounted machines could do the same thing as the robotically controlled CyberKnife, Accuray’s market cap shrank even though its economic fundamentals actually improved.

  On 6 December 2008, Accuray, finally, fired back with the release of two animated videos that effectively demonstrate what CyberKnife is and why it is fundamentally different from gantry-mounted radiation sprayers. You can see them for yourself at http://www.accuray.com.

  Since then, Accuray shares have gone up 65.85 percent; Varian’s shares have gone down 10.55 percent while the NASDAQ is up 30.28 percent as of close of market today (24 July 2009)

  Actually, if Mock was up to speed he might have noticed the piece that Yahoo posted up a few hours ahead of his entitled “First Customer Installs CyberKnife System in Existing Radiation Therapy Vault”.

  Reflecting on the impact of that technology, he might have concluded that RapidArc, by shortening treatment times for conventional radiotherapy (and therefore increasing patient put-through capacity per machine) has actually made it easier for medical centers to decommission one of their older gantry-mounted machines and reallocate one of their existing radiation vaults for a CyberKnife System now that Accuray has a model that can be installed in these smaller bunkers.

  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/First-Customer-Installs-prnews...

• Report this Comment On July 28, 2009, at 1:15 PM, whotfcares369 wrote:

  Robots are cool. CyberKnife must be better. Great Marketing you fool.

• Report this Comment On July 28, 2009, at 1:20 PM, whotfcares369 wrote:

  Oh and why dont you explain what a Novalis Tx is?

• Report this Comment On July 28, 2009, at 9:24 PM, PauvrePapillon wrote:

  Novalis Tx is just another single plane-bound, gantry-mounted radiation sprayer.

  It’s not a question of robots being cool. It’s the fact that having a miniature linear accelerator mounted on a computer-controlled, real-time, image-guided robot enables the radiation to be delivered in both isocentric and non-isocentric treatment patterns that originate from a virtually unlimited number of planes.

  The principal practical advantage is that there are more entry and exit points which means you can deliver a greater dose of radiation onto the tumor with a lesser dose being applied to the surrounding healthy tissue.

  If you can visualize in three dimensions, this advantage is immediately obvious. If not, viewing the animated videos at http://www.accuray.com are a big help toward understanding the difference between a single-plane and a multi-plane radiation delivery pattern.

  The second practical advantage is that, if you can track for and detect tumor movement in real time (something that only CyberKnife can do), the robot can move in three dimensions to correct for this movement and hence the margins around the tumor necessary to achieve with confidence the complete abatement of the tumor become compressed - and again, healthy tissue is spared.

  However, if your device is gantry-mounted it can only move in a single plane. Tumors move in three dimensions so there is no way to correct for such movement even if you could detect it.

  The robot isn’t a marketing gimmick. It’s not there to duplicate the movements of single plane-bound, gantry-mounted radiation sprayers. It’s there to give the radiation source six-degrees of freedom and hence create complex treatment patterns and deliver radiation with accuracy which otherwise would not be possible.

  Varian does its best to obfuscate these facts but it's really just simple geometry. Sooner or later, the truth will come out. In fact, if you look at the price action of Accuray versus Varian versus the NASDAQ since the 6 December 2008 release of Accuray’s technology differentiation videos, you could argue that we’re already in the process thereof:

  As of close of market today (28 July 2009):

  ARAY is up 68.78 percent

  NASDAQ is up 30.95 percent

  VAR is down 8.49 percent

• Report this Comment On July 29, 2009, at 3:15 PM, PauvrePapillon wrote:

  For those who hate to mix politics and investing, sorry, but sometimes politics is what is driving the market.

  Still not convinced that Urkelama is impacting your share price?

  Check out the time on this AP report:

  “House Dems to move forward on health care bill, work out deal with fiscal conservatives”

  [Wednesday July 29, 2009, 12:59 pm EDT]

  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/House-Dems-to-move-ahead-on-ap...

  Now look at your intraday chart:

  http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=ARAY#symbol=ARAY;range=1d

  Check out the intraday charts for Varian and Intuitive Surgical.

  Same deal. Urkelitis hits VAR and ISRG also.

  http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=VAR#symbol=VAR;range=1d

  http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=ISRG#symbol=ISRG;range=1d

  The good news is that, if Obamacare is defeated, ARAY will go much higher in the fall.

  From Dick Morris: Elderly Lead Opposition on Obama Healthcare…

  “Seniors are less interested in whether there will be a government insurance option than whether they will face rationing of care.

  “Open-ended questions on a number of surveys find the elderly very worried that they will not be able to get quality-of-life treatments, such as hip or knee replacements, under the Obama program. Others worry that the program will encourage them to give up when facing serious illness and enter hospices to minimize costs to the government.

  “These survey results will come as no surprise to congressmen and senators who go home in August and take soundings in their districts. The opposition of their elderly constituents to the plans making their way through Congress will be obvious. And when they feel the heat, they will, hopefully, see the light.”

  http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2009/07/29/elderly-lead-oppos...

• Report this Comment On August 19, 2009, at 2:50 PM, chopchop0 wrote:

  Sorry PauvrePapillon, but Varian machines have radiosurgical capibilities as well, and have the benefit of onboard CT-based imaging. Tomotherapy also has this benefit.

  With cyberknife, you are trusting a COMPUTER to interpret 2D (not 3D/CT) imaging to adjust the machine correctly. You are also TRUSTING that the fiducials placed by the surgeon will not move around within the tumor.

  Only Varian and Tomotherapy offer true 3D/CT image guidance, and also have the versatility of treatment with standard radiation therapy.

  Cyberknife has very limited capabilities, and as capital budgets are slashed, people are going to go for the machine that can do everything, namely the Varian Trilogy.

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