The U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) has awarded Siemens Healthineers' Varian business unit up to $60 million over five years to advance photon Flash radiotherapy.
Siemens Healthineers will contribute an additional $23 million cost share for a total combined commitment of up to $83 million.
Flash radiotherapy delivers radiation more than 100 times faster than conventional approaches, with the aim of reducing damage to healthy tissue while effectively treating tumors, according to the company. Most Flash radiotherapy research has focused on proton and electron beam platforms, but Siemens Healthineers said the five-year project will focus on developing photon Flash therapy on traditional linear accelerators, which are more widely accessible than proton or electron beam systems.
Radiotherapy is required for more than 50% of cancer patients and photon beams remain the global standard of care, making scalable access to photon Flash therapy a key clinical goal, the company said.
The award is described as the first ARPA-H grant in the radiation oncology field, according to the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). The European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) noted that radiotherapy remains significantly underfunded in global cancer research and said the ARPA-H investment represents a meaningful step toward closing that gap.
Photon Flash therapy remains experimental and has not received regulatory clearance.
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![A 53-year-old patient (patient number four) with a recurrent pituitary adenoma with extension of a cystic component of disease to the medial temporal lobe apparent on MRI (contoured in blue), and extension of disease to the left sphenoid bone and orbital apex apparent on [68Ga]Ga-DOTA-TATE (contoured in yellow).](https://img.auntminnie.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/04/pituitary-tumor.QGsEnyB4bU.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
![A 53-year-old patient (patient number four) with a recurrent pituitary adenoma with extension of a cystic component of disease to the medial temporal lobe apparent on MRI (contoured in blue), and extension of disease to the left sphenoid bone and orbital apex apparent on [68Ga]Ga-DOTA-TATE (contoured in yellow).](https://img.auntminnie.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/04/pituitary-tumor.QGsEnyB4bU.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
