A manufacturer of sophisticated cancer-fighting equipment has won another contract in the latest round of public spending on the disease.

Crawley-based Varian Medical Systems has been chosen as the main supplier of radiotherapy machines in wave eight of the Government's cancer plan.

The firm has been awarded orders for another six linear accelerators for Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust in London and the Bristol Oncology Centre.

Varian, which employs 200 people at its Gatwick Road headquarters, is the world's leading supplier of radiotherapy equipment for the treatment of cancer.

It has won contracts at every stage of the Government's cancer plan, launched in 2000, to reduce the number of deaths caused by the disease and cut waiting times.

So far Varian has amassed sales of about £50 million from the strategy.

Over the last two years The Department for Health has ordered 91 linear accelerators image-guided radiotherapy machines to upgrade older machines.

Almost 70 per cent of the orders went to Varian.

David Scott, Varian's UK sales manager, said: "The capital investment programme under the UK government's cancer plan, aimed at improving the provision of radiotherapy services in England, has been a great success, with Varian being awarded the lion's share of the business.

"The practical approach adopted by Varian has been to provide hospitals with access to leading edge technology, whilst still supplying the increased treatment capacity necessary to ease the workload on the clinical staff and to reduce radiotherapy treatment waiting times for patients."

June 8, 2005