LONDON (Alliance News) - Polarean Imaging PLC said Tuesday it had its third USD1 million tranche of a study grant confirmed for its late stage trial of xenon medical imaging for children being treated for cystic fibrosis.
The newly-confirmed USD1.0 million Small Business Innovation Research grant is the third tranche of the USD3.0 million grant awarded and will be used towards continuing the phase three trial evaluating the use of 129 Xe MRI scanning for children being treated for the condition.
The SBIR grant was initially awarded in April 2017 by the National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute, part of the US National Institutes of Health.
"This includes deploying recent developments in our gas exchange and red blood cell imaging techniques using 129 Xe MRI," Polarean Chief Executive Officer Richard Hullihen said. "There are several new drug therapies under development by manufacturers and a key element in expediting the development and commercialisation process is having quantitative, reproducible, non-invasive imaging-based biomarkers."
"These biomarkers could reduce the cost of trials and maximise the outcome and proof of cost efficacy in this critical patient population," Hullihen added. "Achieving these milestones may facilitate expansion of the developed techniques to other members of the Xenon MRI Trials Consortium for multi-centre trials."
"We believe the applications being developed in CF could further expand the use of 129-Xe imaging as we continue to progress our own Phase III Clinical Trials, which are testing our drug-device combination for the evaluation of pulmonary ventilation", Hullihen continued.
Shares in Polarean were untraded on Tuesday, last traded at 16.12 pence.
polarean (POLX)