ProCure takes legal action in proton center battle

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A company seeking to build a proton therapy cancer treatment center is laying the groundwork to sue Northern Illinois University, claiming the school violated state antitrust laws and misled state officials in planning its West Chicago center. Bloomington, Ind.-based ProCure Treatment Centers Inc. filed a petition Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court, asking for all documents used by NIU in planning for approval to build the Proton Treatment and Research Center in the DuPage National Technology Park in West Chicago. Building on NIU's center began this summer. The petition claims the DeKalb university misled state regulators in an effort to prevent competition from ProCure, along with its partner, Central DuPage Hospital in Glen Ellyn, in their plans to build a similar center in Warrenville. The hospital is not listed in the legal documents. ProCure officials would not say Wednesday if they are planning on filing a lawsuit, nor offer additional comment. This week's legal action comes as ProCure and CDH prepare to appear next month before the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board in an attempt to persuade state regulators to change their minds regarding a denial for their proton center proposal. In February, the planning board granted a permit, known as a certificate of exemption, to NIU, allowing it to build its proposed $159 million Northern Illinois Proton Treatment and Research Center in West Chicago. But in April, the state planning board denied the request from ProCure and CDH for a different kind of permit, known as a certificate of need, to build a similar center, worth $140 million, in Warrenville. That decision followed a contentious public hearing in which officials from NIU and their supporters had lobbied the planning board to reject the ProCure proposal. ProCure has maintained that NIU is incapable of building its facility within the rules laid out by the health facilities board, including a 24-month completion of the center. Yet NIU is seeking to block ProCure from building its proton center because the state might have, in turn, prevented NIU from moving forward with its plans, ProCure alleges. In a memo to employees, ProCure CEO Hadley Ford said the legal action was necessary to prevent NIU from taking action to “impugn our company's reputation, use the regulatory or political process to restrict our development or, more importantly, limit patient access to a treatment we know can hold the key to beating cancer.” NIU officials declined to comment Wednesday, but released a statement responding to the filing. In it, NIU questioned ProCure's motives, calling the litigation “an exercise of delay and interference.” NIU said the state regulatory process did not leave ProCure “unfairly harmed in any way.” “But on a broader scale, it is troubling that ProCure has chosen to sue an agency of the State of Illinois, and use the public as a shield against its own highly questionable tactics when it opposed NIU's application for a certificate of exemption,” the statement read, in part.