Update: UAMS To Pay CARTI $9.5 Million to End Deal

Update: The University of Arkansas Board of Trustees has approved the $9.5 million deal to cancel the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ lease agreement with Central Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute of Little Rock.

The $9.5 million will come from a UAMS reserve fund, which had about $200 million.

UAMS will also offer jobs to the 28 CARTI workers who work on the UAMS campus. 

Original story: 

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences has offered to pay $9.5 million to cancel its lease agreement with Central Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute of Little Rock and buy CARTI’s assets that are at UAMS.

The offer has to be approved by the UA Board of Trustees, which is meeting at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. If approved, the closing date on the transaction would be June 29.

Both sides fought over the assets of the CARTI. CARTI said its UAMS assets were worth $11.5 million, while UAMS said it was worth $7.5 million, according to an April 19 letter from UA President Donald Bobbitt to the trustees.

The proposed Memorandum of Understanding "does not completely please everyone, but we believe that it is the best course of action to assure quality uninterrupted treatment services for patients and for UAMS to continue to establish on its own a quality radiation oncology program of therapy, treatment, research and education," Bobbitt said in the letter (PDF).

In August, CARTI, Little Rock Hematology Oncology and Radiation Oncology Associates P.A. announced that they were partnering to form a multi-specialty cancer group with plans to build a new cancer treatment center. 

In 2010, UAMS opened its 12-story expansion to the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute in Little Rock. The 300,000-SF building cost about $130 million.