Professor Yoram Palti sets up a laboratory in his basement in Haifa, Israel, and founds Novocure in 2000.

More than 20 years ago, Novocure founder Professor Yoram Palti had a vision. His vision was grounded in belief­—what he knew to be true about physics, biology and medicine, and what he knew to be possible. He unearthed his PhD thesis on the distribution of electric fields in nerve fibers from 40 years prior, and he sought to apply it to cancer.

“I was sort of the odd guy in the medical class that was also interested in physics rather than just biology and medicine,” Yoram said of the breadth of his scientific interests and expertise.

With pencil and paper, Yoram began computing how to use electric fields to destroy cancer cells.

“I’m a believer in science and physics, as essential to the progress of medicine,” he said. “I came to the conclusion that it’s possible, and we set up a laboratory to try to prove it.”

“If you just believe that something is, you know that it is working and you know all the scientific facts behind it, then you just know that you have to fight until you get it.”

        — Professor Yoram Palti,
            Founder and Chief
            Technology Officer