BTG product gets two ticks of approval

(ShareCast News) - Global specialist healthcare company BTG announced the inclusion of treatment with its PneumRx Coils product in guidelines for the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on Monday, as published by the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD).The FTSE 250 firm said that at the same time, the French Ministry of Health has published its positive recommendations regarding PneumRx Coils on its website."We're pleased that both GOLD and the French Ministry of Health have acknowledged the value of PneumRx Coils for emphysema patients," said chief medical officer Guenter Janhofer.The updated GOLD guidelines now include endobronchial coils as a minimally invasive, bronchoscopic approach to reducing hyperinflation in severe emphysema patients.BTG said the update includes coils as a therapy option for emphysema predominant patients with severe hyperinflation, regardless of disease distribution or presence of collateral ventilation.The French Ministry of Health published positive recommendations regarding PneumRx Coils on its website, saying they filled an unmet medical need and a public health interest based on therapeutic improvement over optimal medical therapy.BTG said the assessment will be a critical component in determining national reimbursement for treatment of patients with severe emphysema in France.Both the GOLD recommendations and determination by the French Ministry of Health are based on two multicenter randomized controlled trials that examined the use of PneumRx Coils compared to usual care in changes in quality of life, lung function and exercise capacity in patients with advanced homogeneous and heterogeneous emphysema."In both randomized, controlled, multi-center studies, patients treated with the PneumRx Coil experienced improvements in quality of life, lung function, and exercise capacity," Janhofer explained."Data and imaging analysis is ongoing to further consider best practices for patient selection."This analysis will be shared in upcoming publications to provide additional treatment considerations to physicians."