GCIPolarean Imaging Gets Exclusive Rights to Duke University Hyperpolarised Gas MRI Patent
, the medical-imaging technology firm, entered into a licensing agreement with Duke University for patents to “an entirely new use” for hyperpolarised gas imaging in pulmonary vascular disease today.
The deal will allow Polarean to address an unmet medical need in diagnosis and monitoring of cardiopulmonary conditions.
Prevalence of pulmonary vascular disease is significant in the western world, with hundreds of thousands of patients suffering from the disease in the US alone link.
Pulmonary arterial hypertension is difficult to diagnose and requires invasive and expensive heart catheterisation to diagnose.
New drugs are available to address it, but these drugs drive up the annual cost for patients to over $100,000.
However Duke’s patented method of using hyperpolarised gas MRI in a novel, non-invasive manner to quantify pulmonary vascular pressure, may potentially eliminate the need for the costly and invasive catheterisation.
Shares were up 3% trading at 17.5p a share on the day of the announcement
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The licencing agreement with Duke University grants Polarean exclusive rights to the technology, and the Company will work with Duke to drive this new technology towards clinical use and regulatory approval.
Richard Hullihen, CEO of Polarean, said: "We are delighted to expand our collaboration with Duke University and are especially excited to be co-developing this novel use for hyperpolarised MRI.
“With this extension of hyperpolarised xenon technology, we are expanding the usefulness of our core technology to fully address diseases of the airways, lung parenchyma, and now the pulmonary vasculature."
The company previously licensed Duke's 3D gas exchange imaging technology to provide a complete diagnostic suite that addresses a critical unmet need in the care of patients with pulmonary vascular disease.
The annual burden of pulmonary disease in the US is estimated to be over US $150 billion.
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