VisEn Medical announces launch of two new imaging agents at EMIM 2010

VisEn Medical Inc., a leader in fluorescence in vivo imaging from research through medicine, announced the commercial launch of two new imaging agents -- ProSense® 750 FAST for expanded versatility in imaging cathepsin activity, and Neutrophil Elastase™ 680 FAST, for imaging of inflammatory elastase activity associated with disease progression and therapeutic response.  The launch announcements were made at the European Molecular Imaging Meeting (EMIM) 2010 in Warsaw, Poland.  

New Research and Application Areas:

• Cathepsins are well known biomarkers in a range of diseases, including atherosclerosis, oncology, pulmonary pathologies, and arthritis.  The new ProSense 750 FAST agent, a faster-activating, smaller molecule product complement to VisEn's ProSense imaging agent, is designed to target a broad range of cathepsins (B, K, L, S, and V) in live cell and in vivo imaging studies.  With similar pan-cathepsin readout profiles but different activation kinetics and imaging time points, VisEn's ProSense and ProSense FAST enable broader study design choices in imaging these key protease families in disease progression and therapeutic response.
• Neutrophil elastase is a key protease involved in acute lung injury, acute respiratory distress syndrome, as well as many other inflammatory processes such as emphysema, cystic fibrosis, COPD, wound healing, rheumatoid arthritis, and ischemia-reperfusion.  Neutrophil Elastase 680 FAST is a selective neutrophil elastase-activatable agent designed for imaging of this serine protease both in vitro and in vivo.

"We continue to be very pleased with the expanding capability and rapid adoption of our fluorescence agents and FMT™ imaging systems in imaging and measuring key biologic pathways and biomarkers in research today," said Kirtland Poss, President and CEO of VisEn. "The new ProSense 750 FAST and Neutrophil Elastase 680 FAST imaging agents are two strong new additions to our suite of agents, and we are especially pleased to be able to announce these products along with our many collaborators at the European Molecular Imaging meeting."

VisEn's proprietary fluorescence imaging agents and labels are designed to provide the industry's broadest and most robust range of biologically-specific imaging readouts.  VisEn offers over 35 different fluorescence molecular agents for imaging key disease-associated biologic targets, processes and pathways.  VisEn agent brands include ProSense®, IntegriSense™, AngioSense™, OsteoSense®, MMPSense™, GastroSense™, ReninSense™, Annexin-Vivo™, and the FAST™ line of imaging agents.  VisEn also offers specialized lines of agent labeling dyes, including its proprietary VivoTag® fluorescence labels and its NanoSpark® nanoparticles for customized fluorescence agent conjugation and development.  They are all designed and optimized specifically for superior biocompatibility, brightness, stability and performance in biological imaging applications including in vitro, cell, tissue and in vivo imaging applications.  

All VisEn agents and labels are designed for in vivo biomarker quantification using VisEn's Fluorescence Molecular Tomography (FMT™) imaging systems, or for general use along with other non-quantitative fluorescence in vivo imaging systems.  VisEn agents are also designed to enable complementary in vitro biomarker readouts in cells and tissues using standard fluorescence microscopy and other cellular-based imaging systems.  With a focus on translational research and results, all of VisEn's technologies are designed to generate translational data linking preclinical research into clinical medicine.

SOURCE VisEn Medical Inc.