- Imagin Medical has developed a technology, currently entering the manufacturing stage, which it believes will revolutionize bladder cancer surgical imaging
- The company’s technology, the i/Blue Imaging System, can display blue and white light images of the bladder side-by-side simultaneously, allowing surgeons greater ability to detect and remove tumors
- Imagin has raised a $2.165 million convertible note offering to fund the company during the manufacturing phase of its surgical imaging system as well as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) approval process
- Bladder cancer is one of the most prevalent cancers in the United States, particularly in men, and is expected to result in the deaths of roughly 17,200 patients this year — approximately 71 percent of them men
The American Cancer Society forecasts that in 2021 about 83,730 new cases of bladder cancer will be diagnosed in the United States, about 77 percent of them in men. And that about 17,200 bladder cancer cases will result in death, about 71 percent of them in men (https://ibn.fm/6NEqE). While bladder cancer rates have been declining for the past decade, the ACS predicts there will be a 3 percent increase this year (https://ibn.fm/8KYwX).
Imagin Medical (CSE: IME) (OTCQB: IMEXF) is preparing to commercialize its proprietary i/Blue Imaging(TM) System once final U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) approval has been granted. The purpose-built mission of the i/Blue Imaging System is to bring about a marked improvement in bladder cancer detection through cystoscopy (using conventional endoscopes inside the body to help surgeons detect and resect tumors) and thereby help reduce the incidence of recurrence or severe progression of such cancers.
While cystoscopy has wide use in resecting bladder cancers, it has largely relied on normal visual range white light for illuminating the bladder on surgeons’ video screens despite technological advances by industry suppliers and researchers who have determined blue light and a pink staining dye can help surgeons more effectively locate tumors for resection and remove them more completely.
“Here is the crux of the problem urology has long faced: cystoscopy is the standard of care for diagnosing bladder cancer, but cystoscopy relied upon incident white light from the instrument. White light misses 50% of malignant bladder lesions,” a physician who serves as editor-in-chief of investment media outlet BioPub states in a recent opinion article that touts Imagin’s efforts (https://ibn.fm/okNai). “‘Houston we have a problem:’ when your standard of care is that compromised, you can see how bladder cancer would cultivate a reputation for being hard to cure. Imagin, a small Canadian biotech, has been working behind the scenes with genuine thought leaders in urology to improve diagnostic yield at cystoscopy, and now seems to have done so.”
Imagin is a company “where, when you think about the methodology they’re promulgating, you’re like, it’s so obvious in retrospect,” the physician, known as Dr. KSS, says in an episode of his webcast (https://ibn.fm/3h9Q0). “How did it take medicine so many decades to get to this point? … (The i/Blue Imaging System) is a system that we think will become state of the art, that operators will be really impelled to install lest they not be with standard of care.”
A report by Urology Times described cost benefits from using blue light cystoscopy procedures, stating that in the initial transurethral resection of bladder tumors the procedures “lowered costs by $4,660 over 5 years compared with use of white light cystoscopy alone” and led to a lower overall burden for patients (https://ibn.fm/COXAr).
One reason Imagin cites for blue light cystoscopy being underutilized is that surgical centers already have an inventory of conventional endoscopes that use white light. Current blue light technology requires the purchase of new customized endoscopes that are only available from one manufacturer, not only adding cost but also rendering the current inventory useless. In addition, blue light cystoscopy still requires white light images in order to operate, so surgeons need to switch back and forth between the white and blue light images during the procedure to get the full picture of the cancer in the bladder.
Imagin’s i/Blue Imaging System advances existing technologies by using a dualview camera technology that controls images on the monitor and that can be adapted to almost any existing endoscopic equipment surgical centers already own. The i/Blue system can display both blue light images and white light images side-by-side simultaneously during the procedure, eliminating the challenges of comparing blue and white light images by toggling back and forth.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ImaginMedical.com.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to IMEXF are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/IMEXF
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