Hancock Prospecting invests in Lumitron’s HyperVIEW VHEE beam, advanced X-ray tech platform
Hancock Prospecting has provided an initial $50 million investment into Lumitron, with the right to increase its investment to $100 million during the 2026 calendar year, to support the commercial scale-up and deployment of the HyperVIEW Very High Energy Electron (VHEE) beam and advanced X-ray technology platforms across applications such as mining.
As part of the agreement, Hancock Prospecting has nominated a representative to the Lumitron board to support collaboration and commercialisation initiatives across priority markets.
Hancock has two members on the technical review committee, including Dr. Glenn Rice, a biophysics and oncology drug-development expert (former COO and President of Pharmacyclics; Stanford Research Institute; and Genentech). And Hancock Prospecting is particularly pleased to have secured the right to bring three of these advanced systems to Australia. These will be the first three of such vitally important and massively improved cancer detection and treatment systems to come to Australia.
Dr Rice stated: “Lumitron has developed HyperVIEW, a world-first platform of imaging systems and electron beam radiotherapy machines designed to deliver ultra-high-resolution X-ray imaging and VHEE beam radiotherapy capability within a compact architecture, deployable in existing clinical environments.
“Lumitron represents the first fundamental change in clinical radiotherapy in 70 years, and the first fundamental change in clinical and industrial X-ray radiography in 130 years.”
He explained further: “Built on patented laser-Compton physics originally developed at the world-renowned Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, HyperVIEW is designed to deliver capabilities traditionally associated with large-scale research infrastructure in a compact system suitable for broader clinical and industrial deployment. Recent peer-reviewed studies have identified HyperVIEW as the world’s highest-resolution commercial compact mono-energetic X-ray imaging machines. Depending on the hardware configuration, the technology can deliver between 100 and 1,000 times greater imaging resolution than conventionally produced X-ray systems, with up to 100 times lower radiation dose than existing technologies.
“This higher resolution will improve early cancer detection and the precision of treatment.
Hancock Executive Chairman, Gina Rinehart, added: “In healthcare, HyperVIEW has been developed for advanced medical imaging and precision radiotherapy applications designed to greatly improve the speed and accuracy of cancer detection and treatment. Hancock Prospecting’s investment will support Lumitron to develop its first commercially focused VHEE FLASH radiotherapy machine, a capability that does not currently exist for commercial use.”
She added: “In mining and resources applications, HyperVIEW is designed to go beyond conventional industrial X-ray systems, which are typically limited to analysing the shape and density of materials. HyperVIEW has the potential to identify the composition and concentration of minerals and contaminants in ore, allowing mining operators to selectively process higher-value ore, thereby improving recovery rates while potentially reducing energy consumption and overall processing costs.”
Dr Rice said in future advanced manufacturing and 3D additive manufacturing applications, HyperVIEW is designed to detect microscopic structural defects at scales as small as one twentieth the width of a human hair in real time, supporting quality assurance and material analysis.
He added: “Lumitron has developed unique capabilities and intellectual property in ultrafast lasers and compact accelerators. It holds exclusive commercialisation rights to core intellectual property underpinning the HyperVIEW platform, comprising a licensed patent portfolio spanning more than 14 patent families.”
Rinehart said the company is engaged with major US scientific and government research organisations, including the United States Department of Energy and the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), alongside academic and clinical organisations, including the University of California, Irvine and Australia’s I-MED Radiology Network.
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