Accuray powers up in Madison

Bringing innovation to radiation therapy for cancer

When it comes to radiation-based treatment for cancer, Accuray is at the forefront.

The Madison company’s mission is to develop technology that will shrink and destroy cancerous tumors while damaging as few healthy cells as possible.

Accuray’s primary manufacturing, research and development, and distribution have been centered in Madison for more than a decade, but the company headquarters was in Sunnyvale, California—until last year. In 2023, Accuray moved its headquarters to Madison and also opened a modernized, enhanced global training center, the Accuray Center for Education, thus solidifying Madison as its home.

Now, Accuray is about to play an even bigger role in Wisconsin’s biohealth sector. The company is one of the key players in the research and development that will result from Madison’s designation as one of 12 U.S. Regional Tech Hubs. That announcement, in July 2024, brings $49 million to the state’s biohealth community with goals that include achieving breakthroughs in personalized medicine. That means treating patients with critical illnesses in the ways that are best suited to them, on an individual basis, rather than deferring to a more generalized solution.

A UW-Madison spinoff

Accuray’s Wisconsin story began when a team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s medical physics department, headed by Thomas “Rock” Mackie, started experimenting with new ways to deliver radiation therapy by programming the beam system to move around a patient instead of positioning the patient in front of a stationary radiation source.

In 1997, the researchers spun off the technology and founded TomoTherapy. Its machine—whose latest version is called Radixact—spirals around a patient, delivering quick, precise radiation beams to the tumor.

Meanwhile, in California, Accuray was producing CyberKnife, a robotic device developed at Stanford University that also moves and bends around a patient, delivering radiation from multiple unique beam angles.

In 2011, Accuray bought TomoTherapy. Today, more than 1,000 of the Madison company’s Radixact, CyberKnife, and earlier TomoTherapy radiation machines are operating throughout the U.S. and in more than 60 countries worldwide.

In recent years, Accuray’s focus has been on making its machines easier to use, with better visual images and higher accuracy. “The more precise you are, the better therapy you can give,” says Jim Dennison, the company’s senior vice president and chief quality and development officer in Madison. “The better the image, the more potential cancers the radiation oncologist can look at to use our devices.”

ClearRT allows clear, high-fidelity images to better tell the difference between cancerous cells and healthy cells; other innovations include aligning cameras to identify and track a patient’s tumor cells even as the patient’s body moves, such as when the patient is breathing.

Accuray has more than 850 employees worldwide, with about 300 of them in Madison. To employees, the company’s mission is personal. Not only do most of them have a friend or relative who has been affected by cancer, the company brings in cancer survivors to speak to employees. “We hold a global town hall, and former patients tell their story and talk about their journey through the process. They have walked away cured of cancer and they tell us what they’re doing now. There’s never a dry eye in the room. It really gives a sense of purpose to us. That’s the moment when we say: Now we know why we’re here,” Dennison says.

Collaborating for future solutions

Accuray is part of the Wisconsin Biohealth Tech Hub Consortium, which also includes the Universities of Wisconsin, UW-Madison, GE HealthCare, Rockwell Automation, Exact Sciences Corp., BioForward Wisconsin, Employ Milwaukee, Plexus, WRTP Big Step, Milwaukee Area Technical College, Madison Area Technical College, the Madison Regional Economic Partnership, and Milwaukee 7.

“We are exploring multiple opportunities on how to engage with our partners for advancing personalized medicine,” Dennison says. “We’re super excited about it.” That may involve help from artificial intelligence in determining the best therapy and outcomes for certain types of cancer, and finding techniques for the highest rates of success, he says.

Accuray also collaborates with a wide range of Wisconsin companies that are part of its supply chain; 30%-35% of components for the company’s devices come from Wisconsin suppliers, Dennison says. “We source computer technology, parts, labor, and cables—a lot of those relationships are quite longstanding.”

He says Accuray is committed to being a “big player” in Wisconsin’s biohealth ecosystem, as evidenced by the company’s decision to move its headquarters to Madison.

“The talent, suppliers, and technology here are super helpful in driving us toward the next innovations,” Dennison says.