Topic: How To Invest

Pat: Can I have your opinion on Accuray as an investment? Thank you.

Article Excerpt

Accuray Inc., $6.39, symbol ARAY on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 57.4 million; Market cap: $366.8 million), makes the CyberKnife robotic system. CyberKnife is a non-invasive alternative to surgery that is designed to use precisely aimed doses of radiation to treat tumours in hard-to-target areas of the body. CyberKnife differs from competing systems in that the radiation source is mounted on a computer-controlled robot. This gives the system a wide range of angles from which to deliver radiation to the patient. Surgeons then use specialized software to plan the radiation delivery. X-ray cameras guide the system during treatment. This lets the robot adjust when the patient moves or breathes. Several companies make somewhat similar machines, but they lack the flexibility of CyberKnife’s robot-mounted system. Competitors include U.S-based Varian Medical Systems, Elekta Instruments (Sweden), BrainLAB (Germany) and Siemens Medical (Germany). In the three months ended September 30, 2009, Accuray’s sales fell 9.5%, to $50.6 million from $55.9 million. That’s because cutbacks on hospital spending hurt the…