Budget Cuts Threaten Mammography MRI Project; Focused Research Initiative Projects At Risk.

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 26, 1995--A project aimed at developing a safer, more effective, mammography technology is at risk due to proposed congressional budget cutting.

"The Defense Department's Focused Research Initiative (FRI) is under attack and valuable projects, like the Stanford-Conductus project, may find the carpet pulled out from under them," said U.S. Representative Anna Eshoo. FRI's funding was originally set at a scant $20 million across several agencies, but the House budget slashing cut the allocation in half, and the Senate, not to be outdone, proposed cutting the funding completely.

"The Stanford-Conductus project could increase the detection and effective treatment of breast cancer which kills 50,000 women a year, here in the U.S. The $4.39 million, three and a half year contract for this project is a tiny fraction of the medical costs for treating these women, each year," she added. "By crippling that $4 million project, the indiscriminate budget cutters are throwing away an opportunity to save hundreds of millions of dollars in future medical costs, not to mention hundreds or thousands of women's lives."

Conductus Inc. and the Magnetic Resonance Systems Research Laboratory at Stanford University are to jointly develop a new mammography scanner. It will combine Conductus' high-temperature superconductive receiver coil technology with Stanford's new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique. The joint project is being underwritten by a Naval Research Laboratory and Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) contract under the Defense Department's Focused Research Initiative.

The Project

X-ray mammography is now the preferred technique for detecting breast cancer. However, x-ray mammography exposes the patient to ionizing radiation and also requires uncomfortable compression of the breast. Recent clinical studies indicate that MRI has the potential to detect breast cancer at an earlier stage of development than x-ray mammography.

But MRI is currently considered too expensive to be a screening procedure. The goal of this research project is to develop an MRI mammographic scanner with greatly reduced capital costs. With the marriage of two advanced technologies at Stanford and Conductus, this important technique may become an affordable option for millions of patients.

The Focused Research Initiative

The Defense Department's Focused Research Initiative program strives to encourage scientific and technical innovation in areas specifically identified by DoD agencies as critical to defense and civilian application. The overarching purpose of the program is to speed the application of university research to user needs by encouraging researchers from acedemia and industry to work together toward a common objective.

The first solicitations for the FRI program were in 1994; subject to availability of appropriations, FRI was expected to continue through fiscal year 1998. Five agencies within the Department of Defense sponsor the FRI program: the Army Research Office, the Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Advanced Research Project Agency and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.

Conductus Inc. (NASDAQ:CDTS) develops, manufactures and markets, electronic components and systems based on superconductors for applications in magnetic sensing, magnetic resonance instruments and wireless communications. Conductus was founded in 1987 following the discovery of high-temperature superconductors.

CONTACT: Conductus Inc.

Randy Simon, 408/523-9473