Interview with Accuray's Founder, Dr. John Adler

Matthew Rafat, who previously wrote about Accuray's shareholder meeting (2009), has a great interview with Accuray's founder, Dr. Adler, on his site.

A must read, thanks to both the author and Dr. Adler.

Here we'll report just a few lines:

>>7. What do you feel Accuray is doing poorly?

In planning for unrealistic growth, Accuray scaled operations prematurely and needlessly burned through a lot of cash, and at the same time, communication with investors deteriorated terribly. Of note, since the arrival of CFO Derek Bertocci’s, both of the above issues have improved. However, the company has tragically lost touch with what was once a credible and very unique base of surgical users. The CyberKnife product is increasingly becoming bloated and overly expensive. In parallel, internal company processes have the complexity of a company 10 times the size, which is not a good thing for a company so dependent on rapid innovation. Many CyberKnife features were poorly conceived and in the process of development, robbed engineering talent from more important projects. Rather than envision and drive new clinical applications for radiosurgery, Accuray has chosen to spend a lot of energy and focus backtracking into the traditional radiation oncology market, long dominated by Varian and others. Internally, dissenting opinions are frowned upon, and the Accuray board has virtually no background in any of the medical or technical fields that are relevant to company business. For many years now Accuray has done a very poor job of selling to major US academic centers, which represent vital hubs of clinical research going forward. Moreover, because it’s under represented at major medical centers, Accuray lacks political clout within major medical societies and the government. In belatedly following my mother’s admonition “to not say anything, if you can’t say something nice,” I will stop here.

Petition - Cyberknife cancer care for Australia

Cyberknife is a non invasive, sub millimetre accurate cancer treatment that can treat most cancers without the need for surgery or nasty drugs and has no side effects. It can be used for children with cancers with no pain or side effects.
It generally only takes 1 treatment session.
More info can be obtained at:
www.accuray.com including a video of the Cyberknife in use.

Cyberknife is available all over the world. Every state in USA has at least 1 Cyberknife centre.

In fact its available in over 200 centres world wide and treating 1000's of people daily.

For us in Australia to have access to this amazing technology we are required to travel to an overseas country at great expense and stress as it is not covered by our health funds and the Gov't refuses to assist.

Upon return from the overseas destination you are on your own again as any observations of progress need to be done via email, phone etc as the specialist Cyberknife doctor is overseas and Australia has no staff capable of monitoring your progress.

This petition is to force the Gov't in Australia to act and act now to save some of the 40,000 people who die each year from cancer and also to give a more gentle treatment option to those undergoing cancer care now. Our Gov't has been aware of the amazing potential of Cyberknife for over 3yrs as a result of my persistance after my wife had this treatment in USA.

Still nothing is being done but from the 100's of contacts I get every week there is obviously a desperate need for it now.

Please help by joining us in our fight

We now have a "Facebook support group" to get this here, feel free to join others at:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=43255564285&ref=mf

Thanks

Ash Mackinnon

News from India: HCG plans to install CK in Mumbai and New Delhi

from the IV MB, by yyy60, worth reposting in total:

>>News from India: HCG plans to install CK in Mumbai and New Delhi

** Apollo Hospitals (HCG's rival) also plans to bring CK to New Delhi soon. I think at least 3 CK will be installed in India in 2010 **

http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=386718

Business Standard, India

HealthCare Global plans to foray abroad

Praveen Bose / Chennai/ Bangalore February 25, 2010


HealthCare Global Enterprise Ltd (HCG), the Bangalore-headquartered pan-India chain of 20 super-speciality cancer care hospitals, is now seeking to expand abroad. The healthcare group, which till now has attracted Rs 150 crore of investments from private equity firms, will make its maiden foray abroad with its entry into Bangladesh as a joint venture.

....

Future plans of the group, he said, includes a cyberknife facility in Mumbai and New Delhi respectively.

....

===========================================
http://www.hindustantimes.com/editorial-views-on/colu mnsothers/Cutting-edge/Article1-464511.aspx

Hindustan Times, India
Sanchita Sharma
October 13, 2009

Cutting edge

....

“Apollo Chennai offers complete treatment for $10,000 (Rs 4.8 lakh), which is a fraction of the costs in the US – anything between $50,000 and $60,000 (Rs 24 lakh to Rs 27.6 lakh),” said Dr Prathap Reddy, chairman, Apollo Hospitals.

Apollo plans to install CyberKnife in Delhi within six months.

Citigroup Sees Dilution to Longer-Term Returns at Equinix

from mysmartrend.com:

By Chip Brian, SmarTrend Analytics Team

2/23/2010-Citigroup maintained its Hold rating on Equinix but adjusted its price target lower, from $110 to $106.

Analyst Michael Rollins said, "Our study of ongoing capital spending intensity shows the potential for higher capital intensity than long-term guidance, which is dilutive to our valuation analysis. However, we believe returns for the business model remain on a solid footing and we may revisit our thesis if the share price pulls back to the $80-90 range given the support levels implied by our discretionary FCF/share analysis. Prefer Buy-rated Cogent with upside potential to FY10 consensus revenue with exposure to growth from both its enterprise & data center (net-centric) segments."

Rollins continued, "Our bottom-up analysis of capital spending coupled with our analysis of gross PP&E suggests that capital spending for the existing portfolio is likely to stay in a range between 7% and 10% of revenue over time, implying an economic useful life of 20-32 years, versus EQIX guidance of 5% or a useful life of 40 years."

The bank expects the company to report 2010 EPS of $2.07, versus consensus estimates of $2.06.

Hong Kong Exchanges building 143,000-square-foot datacenter in Hong Kong

from Tier1 Research daily newsletter:

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx) is building a new 143,000-square-foot datacenter in Hong Kong to be used to consolidate the company's existing datacenters in the city. The new three-story facility will be located in the Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate

Is California's data center consolidation plan feasible?

By Mark Fontecchio, on SearchDataCenter.com

When IT pros talk about California's planned data center consolidation, they often use the word aggressive to describe the timeline. Indeed, some think the timeline is so aggressive that it could render the consolidation project impossible.

..

"When you're talking about a $3 billion IT budget, you can get significant savings," said Brian Lillie, the CIO of Equinix, a data center colocation company. "There is probably a lot of low-hanging fruit."

Massive data center consolidation -- by state fiat
Last week, Governor Schwarzenegger issued an executive order calling for a massive consolidation of the state's data centers and servers. The mandate is, by July of 2010, to reduce the total amount of data center square footage used by state agencies by 25% and, by July 2011, to reduce square footage by 50%. The order also mandates that by 2012 IT energy use be cut by 30%.

..

"I think their goals to reduce their footprint and energy consumption are doable," said Jeff Paschke, a senior data center analyst at Tier1 Research. "The big question is the timeline. It doesn't seem too realistic, especially if you look at the track record of other states' data center consolidation efforts."

Southeast Georgia Health System wants to acq a CK

from the IV MB, by yyy60:

>>Southeast Georgia Health System wants to acq a CK

THE BRUNSWICK NEWS, GA. | LINDSEY ADKISON | Sat, Feb 20, 2010

Feb. 20--The Southeast Georgia Health System wants to add another tool to its arsenal in the battle against cancer.

On Friday, it filed a certificate of need with the Georgia Department of Community Health in Atlanta.

The health system wants to acquire a $5.5 million CyberKnife radio surgery system.

The state must approve the application.

...

"Most residents of Georgia do not have convenient access to CyberKnife services, as the only CyberKnife in the state is located in Cobb County, approximately 325 miles away from Brunswick," she said.

Morris says if the health system's certificate of need is approved, services will likely be available in six to eight months.

"The start date is contingent on the construction and renovation, though it could be sooner if all the logistics move along smoothly," she said.