Optune® from NOVOCURE

In 2000, Yoram Palti,  professor emeritus of physiology and biophysics at the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology, sought to leverage his expertise in biophysics to develop a new way to treat solid tumor cancers that would destroy tumor cells while sparing healthy tissue and avoiding many of the life-altering side effects of existing cancer therapies.

He set up a laboratory in his basement to explore the potential of electric fields as a treatment for solid tumors.

Professor Palti founded Novocure to provide patients with a new cancer treatment based on his hypothesis, since proven, that alternating electric fields, when applied at specific frequencies, can disrupt cancer cell division and cause cancer cell death. This innovative treatment, Tumor Treating Fields, is a completely different approach to cancer therapy.

Novocure launched Optune® – their Tumor Treating Fields delivery system for glioblastoma (GBM) – in the United States for the treatment of recurrent glioblastoma in 2011. In October 2015, they received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to market and sell Optune for the treatment of adult patients with newly diagnosed GBM in combination with temozolomide.  Novocure currently active markets include United States, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Israel and Japan.

Recently, Novocure filed a new US patent application  "Inbiting viral infection using alternating electric field" to expand his methods to new areas of medicine.