Rutherford Health


Rutherford Health is a private oncology provider. It was founded by Mike Moran and Karol Sikora in 2015, with investment from Neil Woodford and the Wales Life Sciences Investment Fund, to develop proton therapy facilities in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Until 2019 it was known as Proton Partners International.

Proton therapy

Rutherford Health has proton therapy centres in Newport, Wales, Bedlington, Northumberland, and Reading, Berkshire. Equipment and services have been provided by Ion Beam Applications, Philips and Elekta. The Newport site was the first to open with construction starting in 2016. The Reading site cost £30 million and work began in December 2016, before opening in October 2018. The Bedlington site was opened in 2018.
Funding included £10 million from the Wales Life Sciences Investmunt Fund in 2016, as well as continued investment of over £100 million through fund manager Neil Woodford. The Wales Audit Office has criticised handling of the Wales Life Sciences Investment Fund due to Woodford being the main shareholder in the company which managed it. Proton Partners secured £30 million from Shawbrook Bank in January 2016. The Northumberland site benefited from a grant of £450,000 from the Let’s Grow regional growth fund programme.
In November 2016 Proton Partners purchased the Gulf International Cancer Centre in Abu Dhabi as part of plans to create the first proton beam therapy treatment centre in the United Arab Emirates. Work began in 2019.
In March 2017, the company announced the development of its fourth UK centre to be built by Interserve on the Knowledge Quarter site in Liverpool. In 2018 it was announced work had started on a headquarters for their Rutherford Diagnostics subsidiary. The building will also serve as a research centre and is sited next to their cancer treatment centre in Liverpool.

Other activities

It has established a number of wholly owned subsidiary companies; Rutherford Estates, Rutherford Innovations and Rutherford Diagnostics.