Verisante Technology Inc. V.VRS

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[kuridog]

¦Thomas on October 13, 2012 at 10:12 am said:The Aura technology was tested on 35 patients for oral cancer lesions in a study done by a Harvard University doctoral student as his doctoral dissertation. He and his supervisor wanted to do a larger study as the results were very promising. However, I questioned whether there would be a large market for a device that costs $60,000 plus for oral cancer which is currently being diagnosed by dentists. So we decided not to proceed given the cost of conducting clinical studies and marketing. Instead we in-licensed the exclusive world wide rights for oral cancer to a new multi-spectral imaging technology also developed by the BC Cancer Agency which we believe can be manufactured and then sold at a low enough cost that dentists will pay (under $5000). The engineering started about a year ago and is almost completed. The Aura for skin cancer is the priority so we work on the MSI camera when there is spare time. Once the MSI camera is completed we will conduct studies for skin and oral cancer. It is expected to be less sensitive that the rapid Raman system used by the Aura but is more affordable for the typical general dentist or general practitioner. In the US there are about 36,000 cases per year of oral cancer and 2,000,000 cases of skin cancer. So we believe the skin cancer market is still the biggest and best by far, but there is enough of a market for oral cancer given that there are about 137,000 dentist in the US. The average dentist finds a confirmed case of oral cancer once every few years – maybe once every ten years even. On the other hand skin cancer pops up all the time. Dermatologists find skin cancer every day. They will typically get several BCCs and one or two SCCs each day of their skin cancer clinic, and one or two melanomas per month.