A Boston health services company is targeting Connecticut for an ambitious $368 million regional health technology park development that would include construction of a proton therapy center to treat cancer patients across New England, officials say.
The project — called ProTech Park — is still in the early stages of development and hasn’t finalized a potential site location. But its boosters are targeting several Connecticut towns, including Enfield, for possible build-out of office, lab, and research and development space for start-up and applied science manufacturing firms.
The developers submitted a project outline to the state’s Office of Health Care Access, which regulates the health care industry, but say they are also considering nearby states for the project.
The project outline, which will need to be approved at least in part by the Office of Health Care Access, says a Massachusetts medical device company and a Chicago research and educational firm are interested in relocating to the tech park.
But the anchor tenant would be a $150 million, 75,000-square-foot proton therapy center. Proton therapy is provided in only 11 locations across the country but is becoming an increasingly popular form of cancer treatment.
It uses a beam of protons to target and kill cancerous cells, and has the ability to more precisely target tumors than most other types of radiation treatment. That limits damage to healthy tissues and organs surrounding the cancer.
Stephen Courtney, president of Boston’s International Charged Particle LLC (ICP), which is behind the project proposal, said Connecticut cancer patients have limited access to proton beam therapy, which is why he is targeting the state for expansion.
The nearest treatment center is Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, which is often over capacity, forcing Connecticut patients to travel across the country to access care, said Courtney, who is also a partner at Boston architectural firm SciX, which has designed several proton centers in the United States.
“We realize that so many people don’t get the opportunity to use this form of cancer treatment,” Courtney said. “There is definitely a strong need for it.”
Courtney has been quietly working on the Connecticut project for years, but is now looking to speed up the process to finalize a deal and possibly break ground as early as this fall. If the process drags out, the price tag will increase and various stakeholders may drop out, Courtney said.
Early commitments from several out-of-state medical device and research companies to move to ProTech Park, for example, could be in jeopardy if the project stalls, Courtney added.
But it’s a complicated deal that will require buy-in from many stakeholders including the state, lenders, at least one municipality, and other business interests.
Courtney said his group has targeted a potential development location in Enfield and two other undisclosed Connecticut towns. He said the project will need local approval and clearance from the state’s Office of Health Care Access.
The group will also need to firm up financing. Courtney said they have lined up bank financing for the purchase of equipment for the proton therapy center, which makes up almost half of the $150 million price tag. They will also be looking for help from the state, Courtney said.
Connecticut’s aging and affluent demographics make the state a perfect location for a treatment center, Courtney said, and he sees ProTech Park potentially developing into a key research hub that could draw on partnerships with academia, industry, and government.
International Charged Particle LLC was formed a few years to develop the Connecticut project. Besides Courtney, California radiation oncologist Dr. Leslie Yonemoto is connected with ICP providing clinical leadership.
Yonemoto has deep experience in the industry, having worked at Loma Linda University in California, which is home to the U.S.’s first hospital-based proton therapy center built in 1990.
Proton therapy technology has been around for decades but only 11 treatment facilities exist around the country.
Lately, however, medical research centers have been rushing to get in on the business and there are nearly a dozen centers now in the development pipeline, including in New York City.
The technology is not without controversy. In recent years, critics have begun to question if proton therapy provides enough long-term benefits to justify the cost.
The treatment is two-to-three times more expensive than traditional radiation, and therapy centers require a significant upfront capital investment.
A 2012 study by the Yale School of Medicine, which examined Medicare records of 28,000 prostate cancer patients 12 months after they received treatment, found that there were no major differences in the rate of the most common side effects — including erectile dysfunction and hip fractures — between patients who received proton therapy versus those who were treated with traditional radiation.
Jay Loeffler, the chair of radiation and oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School, said he has concerns about the proliferation of proton centers.
“I don’t think every state necessarily needs one,” Loeffler said. “My concern is that there are going to be so many built in the next five years that it may not be good for the costs to our health care system.”
Loeffler said he doesn’t necessarily oppose a proton center in Connecticut. He said Massachusetts General is actually expanding its own proton therapy center, in part because it operates beyond capacity at times. Of the 900 proton therapy patients the hospital sees each year, about 50 are from Connecticut, he said.
Courtney said although proton therapy is more expensive on the front end, it can save costs long-term. That’s because the treatment is more effective in targeting the entire cancer in a patient, potentially lowering the chances of the disease recurring.
The therapy is also non-invasive, doesn’t require a hospital stay and is particularly beneficial to children who are more severely impacted by conventional chemotherapy, Courtney said.
