In 2000, Yoram Palti, our founder and professor emeritus of physiology and biophysics at the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology, sought to leverage his expertise in biophysics to develop a new way to treat solid tumor cancers that would destroy tumor cells while sparing healthy tissue and avoiding many of the life-altering side effects of existing cancer therapies.
He set up a laboratory in his basement to explore the potential of electric fields as a treatment for solid tumors.
Professor Palti founded Novocure to provide patients with a new cancer treatment based on his hypothesis, since proven, that alternating electric fields, when applied at specific frequencies, can disrupt cancer cell division.
This innovative treatment, Tumor Treating Fields, is a completely different approach to cancer therapy.
“Nobody understood what I was doing,” Professor Palti said of his early development of Tumor Treating Fields.
Palti’s initial research from his basement laboratory evolved to become Novocure – an international oncology company with more than 1,400 employees and operations in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.