Revolutionizing Particle Therapy
Cosylab introduces PlanOne, an FDA-cleared treatment planning system for advanced particle therapy.
Cosylab, a Slovenian software company, has launched PlanOne™, a new treatment planning system for particle therapy. The FDA cleared the system on May 20, 2024, under clearance number K240683, and Cosylab officially unveiled it at the 62nd Particle Therapy Co-Operative Group (PTCOG) conference in Singapore on June 10, 2024, according to Financial Post.
CEO Mark Pleško said PlanOne was built around three goals: "physics accuracy, clinical confidence, and AI and adaptive workflows." The launch marks a bold shift for Cosylab, a company better known for building control systems for physics labs like CERN, now stepping into the high-stakes clinical software market.
How PlanOne™ Calculates Where Protons Go
Particle therapy uses proton or carbon-ion beams to kill cancer cells. The beam stops at a precise depth inside the body, sparing healthy tissue around it. But this precision cuts both ways — small shifts in a patient's anatomy can cause the beam to miss the tumor by millimeters. That is why the math behind planning a proton treatment must be exact, according to Edmonton Sun.
PlanOne uses a GPU-accelerated Monte Carlo dose engine — a method that simulates millions of particle paths through tissue to predict where the dose lands. Traditional Monte Carlo runs on standard computer processors and can take hours. By running on graphics processing units (GPUs), PlanOne cuts that time to minutes or even seconds, according to National Post. It also supports LET (linear energy transfer) calculation, which measures how densely the beam deposits energy — key for treating radio-resistant tumors.
Variable RBE and Robust Optimization Could Reduce Side Effects
Most planning systems treat all protons as equally damaging to cells, using a flat biological effectiveness score of 1.1. That is a simplification. Protons hit cells harder at lower speeds, meaning the damage depends on where in the body the beam slows down. PlanOne supports variable RBE (relative biological effectiveness) modelling, which accounts for these differences, according to Ottawa Sun.
This matters most for children and patients with tumors near the brainstem or spinal cord, where over-dosing by even a small margin can cause serious harm. PlanOne also runs "all-scenario" robust optimization — checking whether a treatment plan still works if a patient shifts position, loses weight, or has a full versus empty bladder across multiple scenarios at the same time, according to Montreal Gazette.
Cosylab Targets a Fragmented, Fast-Growing Market
There are more than 110 operational particle therapy centers worldwide, with another 30-plus under construction, according to PTCOG data cited by Fort Saskatchewan Record. Until now, clinicians at these centers often used separate software tools for imaging, dose calculation, and safety checks. PlanOne puts all of this into one environment — a "unified clinical workflow" that Cosylab says removes the need to export data between programs.
Cosylab is positioning PlanOne as hardware-agnostic, meaning it can work with proton machines from different manufacturers. This targets centers that run mixed equipment fleets — a niche that existing vendors like Varian and RaySearch, who tie their planning software to their own hardware, have not fully served. New proton centers cost between $30 million and $100 million to build, so software that lowers operating costs is a strong selling point, according to Sault Star.
A Strategic Pivot Two Decades in the Making
Cosylab was founded in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2001. For its first two decades, it built control systems for large physics facilities — the software that physically moves the particle beams inside machines at CERN and ITER. Over the past several years, the company quietly became a white-label software developer for major radiotherapy equipment makers, according to Pembroke Observer.
Now, Cosylab has moved from building the software that moves the machines to building the software that decides where the beam goes. That is a shift from engineering infrastructure to clinical decision-making — and a move into a market with much higher margins and direct impact on patient outcomes. Pleško framed it as a commitment to making "the most advanced cancer treatments more accessible and effective," according to Cold Lake Sun.
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