Tuesday, Jul 28, 2015
Dubai: A UAE-based health conglomerate — VPS Healthcare — has acquired a 150-bed hospital in the UK to initiate a superspeciality cancer treatment. The new hospital will be the first private facility in the UK to offer Proton Beam Therapy — a type of radiotherapy that uses subatomic particles to attack cancer cells with less damage to surrounding tissues than conventional radiotherapy.
The new centre, based in west London, will open in 2017 with a staff strength of 1,000.
The investment has been welcomed by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who last year launched MedCity, an initiative to drive forward life sciences research and development, entrepreneurship and commercialisation in England’s greater southeast.
Johnson said: “This is a tremendous vote of confidence in London’s thriving life sciences sector as well as the skills and talent of our amazing health-care professionals. London is a world leader in medical sciences and through MedCity we are working to generate the jobs and growth that will propel this important sector to even greater things.”
Founder and Managing Director of VPS Dr Shamsheer Vayalil said: “At a time when the Middle East’s health-care sector is undergoing a phase of rapid growth, the entry of VPS into the UK market is testament to the world-class technological innovation and health-care expertise stemming from the region.”
Staff Report
Gulf News 2015. All rights reserved.
