Awarded Two New NIH SBIR Grants, TechniScan Medical Systems Also Invited to Participate in Prestigious NIH Commercialization Assistance Program.

Two-Year Total of NIH Grant Awards to TMS Grows To $3.5MM

SALT LAKE CITY -- TechniScan Medical Systems (TMS), Inc., a Salt Lake City-based developer of ultrasound technology for breast imaging, today announced the award of two new Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program grants from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) totaling more than $267,000. Additionally, TMS has been selected to participate in the National Institutes of Health Commercialization Assistance Program (NIH-CAP) to further develop the company's revolutionary UltraSound CT[TM] (USCT[TM]) Imaging System. Both the funding and the commercialization assistance program start immediately.

TMS will also receive approximately $1.7MM in Phase II of a previous NCI-SBIR grant in 2007 with an additional $900,000 to support clinical testing during 2008; coupled with the two new grants, the total of NIH funding to TMS has now grown to $3.5MM. "The further increase in funding, coupled with the assistance for our product commercialization and marketplace transition," noted TMS CEO David C. Robinson, "will support the fast-track development of our reflection transmission system and our efforts to add to its capabilities."

TMS has submitted three grant applications to NIH during the past two years, and NIH has funded all of them. Another significant vote of confidence in TMS and its USCT[TM] System is the company's selection as a participant in the NIH-CAP program that only accepts 10% of companies that apply. "Both the increased funding and selection into the customized, commercial market-based assistance program validate TechniScan's platform and technologies," added Robinson. "The NIH-CAP program uniquely furthers our commercialization efforts by tracking regulatory support, and finding strategic, investment and licensing partnerships with companies that want to collaborate with TechniScan."

TechniScan's proprietary technology is intended to aid physicians in diagnosing breast cancer in conjunction with traditional mammography by providing detailed information about the anatomy and tissue properties of the breast in ways not previously possible. "The newest developments of the USCT[TM] System incorporate a new, advanced modality, opening the possibility for even better distinction between suspicious, malignant and benign cells within breast tissue," said Robinson. TMS researchers are also expanding on another novel imaging method, and it is their hope that it will provide diagnostic results with improved tissue characterization, greater accuracy, precision and resolution of images to allow physicians and radiologists to recognize more easily the presence of cancer.

The $3.5MM from NIH-SBIR will be used in the development of the USCT[TM] System in preparation for investigational testing of patients at the University of California San Diego in La Jolla and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Testing is slated to begin early 2008. The NIH-CAP is a 10-month program that will run through June 2008.

About TechniScan Medical Systems, Inc.

Founded in 1984, TMS (www.techniscanmedicalsystems.com) uses an ultrasound technology called inverse scattering, which makes use of the entire spectrum of information available from the ultrasound signal. The resulting diagnostic information includes ultrasound transmission tomography images in a format similar to that provided by MRI and CT imaging. In addition, UltraSound CT[TM], the company's thermoacoustic and inverse scattering breast cancer scanner provides indices of speed and attenuation of sound, tissue properties that may provide physicians with valuable diagnostic information.

TechniScan is a private company that grew out of the University of Utah's Department of Bioengineering. Support for commercializing the technology has been provided by the Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED) Centers for Excellence Program.

About NIH-CAP

The National Institute of Health Commercialization Program (NIH-CAP) is a nation wide program designed to help some of the nation's most promising life sciences companies develop and bring their Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)-developed technologies to market. The NIH-CAP is comprised of training workshops, individual mentoring and consulting sessions, and public events in which companies present their technologies to the investment community, potential strategic partners and licensees.

NOTE: The project described was supported by Grant Number R43CA123915 and Grant Number R43CA125121 from the National Cancer Institute. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Cancer Institute or the National Institutes of Health.