ViewRay Incorporated

In 2016, the America Cancer Society expected 1,685,210 new cancer diagnoses in the United States alone. And according to the National Cancer Institute, approximately half of all patients diagnosed with cancer will undergo radiation therapy as part of their treatment plan. Given the large number of patients turning to radiation oncology, it is no wonder there is an immense focus on continually advancing this treatment technique. Millions of lives depend upon it.

As radiation therapy continues to evolve, new techniques and technologies are largely focused on maximizing the dose to the tumor site while protecting surrounding tissue as much as possible. Image guidance is a critical component of treatment planning for tumor delineation and gauging treatment response, and cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) has traditionally been the modality of choice. 

ViewRay Inc. announced in late July its successful completion of a reverse merger with ViewRay Technologies Inc. The combined entity will focus solely on the business of ViewRay, the makers of MRIdian, the world's first and only commercial magnetic resonance image (MRI)-guided radiation therapy system that images and treats cancer patients simultaneously. ViewRay will trade on the OTC Markets under the symbol "VRAY."

Image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT) affords greater accuracy of dose distribution during cancer treatment, allowing the radiation oncologist to see how a tumor is responding over the course of treatment. This has traditionally been accomplished with computed tomography (CT) or X-ray scans, which requires extra radiation exposure for the patient, with relatively poor contrast in soft tissue due to uniform electron density. Since treatment is only as good as the images provided, efforts are under way to find a better modality — and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may hold the answer. 

ViewRay announced that it has entered into an exclusive distributor agreement with Itochu Corporation to sell its MRI-guided radiation therapy system for the treatment of cancer in Japan.