Veran Medical
Jul 08, 2008
ST. LOUIS, MO July 8, 2008 – Veran Medical Technologies announced today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has approved the issuance of U.S. patent 7,398,116 for the company’s proprietary 4D registration technology. The company believes that this technology is key to the early diagnosis and therapy delivery for many soft tissue diseases. The company has additionally received 510K clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its SPiN IR™ system which uses the patented 4D registration technology and plans to initiate commercialization plans for the technology very shortly.
“Protecting our intellectual property is key for a young company like Veran,” said Jerome R. Edwards, Veran President and CEO of Veran Medical Technologies. “We are very pleased that the USPTO has agreed with us that our pioneering technology is unique and novel. Our 4D registration technology is a true enabler to bring navigation to moving organs.”
Veran is a privately held medical device company headquartered in St. Louis, MO. The company’s mission is to empower physicians to diagnose cancer earlier and to enable precision therapy to save lives. In the United States, lung cancer kills more people each year than breast, prostate, pancreatic and colon cancers combined.
Veran has developed and commercialized an FDA cleared, next generation electromagnetic thoracic navigation platform called the SPiN Thoracic Navigation System®. Veran’s breakthrough technology has been adopted by leading cancer centers throughout the United States. Veran provides physicians with a full line of bronchoscopic brushes, needles, forceps and steerable catheters with tiny electromagnetic sensors embedded in the tips for precise navigation. The combination of these proprietary Always-On Tip Tracked® instruments and Veran’s exclusive patient respiratory gating technology enables physicians to accurately access lung nodules by accounting for nodule movement during patient breathing, a common challenge for lung specialists.
Another challenge lung specialists face is that approximately 40% of lung nodules lie outside of an airway, making them very difficult to reach endobronchially, and traditionally requiring an additional procedure. Veran’s SPiN Thoracic Navigation System® is the first and only FDA cleared technology that enables Pulmonologists or Thoracic Surgeons to safely and accurately access lung nodules outside of an airway using SPiN Perc®, a navigated transthoracic needle. With SPiN Perc®, Veran combines endobronchial navigation with percutaneous navigation, allowing physicians to access all lung nodules in a single procedure, regardless of nodule size or location. This eliminates the cost and risk of unnecessary procedures and empowers physicians to provide a same day diagnosis for their patients. The early diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer has been proven to save lives.