Rutherford Health collapses as managers admit to ‘unsustainable cash burn’
Rutherford Health has collapsed today, as the board look to wind-up the £23m company and appoint a liquidator.
The private oncology provider had thrown more than £240m at developing four therapy centres between 2015 and 2019, in what managers have now called a “flawed expansion strategy” which contributed to “unsustainable cash burn” and ultimately its financial downfall.
Around 280 job losses are expected as a result.
Tim Creed and Roger Doig, portfolio managers of Rutherford, also admitted the company had placed too much focus on proton beam therapy, which they claim is a “better clinical option for many patients” but has “very limited reimbursement” in the UK.
Rutherford, which works with the NHS and Bupa and has centres across, Reading, Liverpool and Northumberland, had rushed to appoint new leadership in December last year amid a spiralling fiscal situation.
“We put in a new leadership team which vigorously pursued multiple options over the last months to seek to preserve value for shareholders but ultimately could not correct the inherited severe underlying challenges in the business,” said Creed and Doig.
The healthcare firm, founded by Mike Moran and Karol Sikora in 2015, was known as Proton Partners International until 2019.