Within the project Comprehensive Cancer Center, RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG and the Healthcare Sector of Siemens AG want to shape a new contractual basis in their strategic cooperation in cancer diagnostics and therapy. Both companies agreed to implement innovative IT solutions and, above all, to further enhance diagnostic and therapeutic procedures in oncology. At the same time, the companies decided in mutual consent to create a new basis for the particle therapy project at the University Clinic of Marburg, Germany, focusing on research and development.

RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG, headquartered in Bad Neustadt, Germany, and the Healthcare Sector of Siemens AG plan to intensify their cooperation in the field of cancer diagnostics and therapy in Germany.

The Germany-wide initiative Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC), initiated by RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG, is looking for new ways to fight cancer. “We are happy to have Siemens as a reliable partner at our side in this trendsetting project,” said Wolfgang Pföhler, CEO of RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG. “It’s our goal to offer to all patients in Germany, also those in rural areas, the treatment they can expect from a university clinic. Thanks to its extensive product portfolio and powerful applications in telemedicine, Siemens can support us excellently in this task.”  To come closer to this goal within the framework of the CCC project, the focus is on further developing procedures for cancer diagnosis and therapy in addition to establishing innovative IT solutions, such as the electronic patient file, as well as to enhance communication platforms for telemedicine among the treating physicians.

In addition to concluding the cooperation agreement, both companies decided by mutual consent to create a new basis for the particle therapy project at the University Clinic of Marburg. “Particle therapy is a pioneering technology in medical research,” said Hermann Requardt, CEO of the Healthcare Sector of Siemens. “In the course of our development work, however, we’ve noted that we were too ambitious in making this technology available for an economically feasible general patient treatment. This is why we want to focus more on research now. With this in mind, we have jointly shaped a new contractual basis where the plant in Marburg serves exclusively as a research and development center for Siemens. The activities at the Ion Therapy Center in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Proton and Heavy Ion Hospital in Shanghai, China, will continue. Both plants tend to be research-focussed as well. We are currently intensely discussing the future of the particle therapy plant at the University Clinic in Kiel in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, with the responsible parties there.“