The underground Phoenix facility, still in construction and now set to open in March, is being built even as other facilities are opening or nearing completion. In November, for example, the $111 million Texas Center for Proton Therapy in Irving treated its first patient. It offers a more convenient alternative for local patients than the next-nearest facilities at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and the ProCure Proton Therapy Center in Oklahoma City.

So competition is heating up as more centers are coming online. In fact, six centers are set to be opening by the end of 2015 in the U.S. and 10 others by the end of 2018, according to the Wall Street Journal, which stated that this will bring the national total to 30, with an average price tag of between $100 million and $200 million.


One example of the types of challenges faced by proton therapy centers — among them, getting enough patients as they face a mix of increased competition, troubles with cost and insurance reimbursement for some uses of the therapy — is the case of The Hampton University Proton Therapy Institute. It just announced that it is treating just a fraction of the patients it anticipated, according to The Virginian-Pilot.

After projecting the treatment of 2,000 patients a year, by its fifth anniversary in Sept. 2015, the Institute had treated just 1,274, according to the paper. But Hampton University president William Harvey remains cautiously optimistic, telling the publication, "The baby isn't born full-grown. It's just like any other new business. I'm not discouraged at all."

Unlike Hampton University, it would seem that the Mayo Clinic may have both a branding and business plan advantage. By using private funds it is not pressed to repay loans, and can price care in line with other alternatives, and at fees that insurers will pay. And it has had success drawing the necessary flow of patients with its branding efforts. The Mayo Clinic's Proton Beam Therapy program, which opened in June in Rochester, Minn., has seen almost double the number of patients it estimated, chairman of Mayo's radiation oncology department and director of its proton beam program, Dr. Robert Foote, recently told Rochester's Post Bulletin.

"I think it's the Mayo brand name," Foote told the paper. "We have a national and international presence, and are ranked as one of the top cancer centers in the country... the patients love it. They're sailing through treatments with very few side effects. So far, smooth sailing, and it's all going well."

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