IBA (Ion Beam Applications SA) is a medical technology company based in

Louvain-la-Neuve Louvain-la-Neuve (, French for ''New Leuven''; wa, Li Noû Lovén) is a planned town in the municipality of Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Wallonia, Belgium, situated 30 km southeast of Brussels, in the province of Walloon Brabant. The town w ...

. The company was founded in 1986 by Yves Jongen within the Cyclotron Research Center of the

University of Louvain A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

(UCLouvain) and became a

university spin-off University spin-offs (also known as university spin-outs) are companies that transform technological inventions developed from university research that are likely to remain unexploited otherwise. They are a subcategory of research spin-offs. Promin ...

. It employs about 1500 people in 40 locations. The company developed

cyclotrons A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Jan ...

and integrated proton therapy centers is active in the field of

proton therapy In medicine, proton therapy, or proton radiotherapy, is a type of particle therapy that uses a beam of protons to irradiate diseased tissue, most often to treat cancer. The chief advantage of proton therapy over other types of external beam r ...

dosimetry Radiation dosimetry in the fields of health physics and radiation protection is the measurement, calculation and assessment of the ionizing radiation dose absorbed by an object, usually the human body. This applies both internally, due to ingested ...

, radiopharmacy solutions and industrial sterilisation. IBA installed its first proton therapy equipment for Boston's

Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the third oldest general hospital in the United State ...

in 2001, and for Philadelphia's Penn Hospital in 2009. It supplied equipment and services to Proton Partners International which was developing three proton beam therapy centers in the United Kingdom. In 2017, IBA invested €16 million in the construction of a new logistics and production center in Louvain-la-Neuve.

References

{{reflist Medical technology companies of Belgium Companies based in Walloon Brabant Belgian brands