• Boston Scientific (Natick, Massachusetts) reported the start of patient enrollment in the ORION clinical trial, which is designed to evaluate the company's Epic Self-Expanding Nitinol Stent System for the treatment of iliac artery disease, a form of peripheral artery disease that impacts a patient's lower extremities. The Epic stent is a self-expanding nitinol stent designed to sustain vessel patency (openness), while providing enhanced visibility during placement. The ORION trial incorporates stent diameter ranges from 6-12 mm and lengths up to 120 mm. All stent sizes are compatible with 6F (2.1 mm) sheaths, and the stent delivery system is compatible with 0.035'' (0.89 mm) guidewires.

• Results from the first pilot study of Cheetah Medical's (Tel Aviv, Israel) early differential diagnostic protocol for acute heart failure were presented at the 2009 Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Annual Meeting. In this study, the Cheetah Medical NICOM Noninvasive Cardiac Output & Hemodynamic Monitoring System was able to distinguish heart failure patients from patients diagnosed with COPD, asthma and dyspnea for other reasons. The Bioreactance-based, fully noninvasive, orthostatic hemodynamic monitoring protocol uses a set of four skin surface electrodes on the patient's chest or back and monitors during changes in patient position to identify and measure the response of specific hemodynamic variables.

• Hai Kang Life (HKLife; Hong Kong) reported further developments of its field-assisted LOAC (Lab-on-a-Chip) system, EFADchip technology. HKLife also reported two new additions to its existing product portfolio: a Diagnostic Test Kit for Influenza Type A/H1N1 and a Mobile Field Unit ensuring effective deployment of diagnostic testing for point-of-care applications. The test kits have been developed in rapid response to the 2009 novel influenza A (H1N1) virus outbreak, as the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for all member states to enhance surveillance and diagnostic capacities for influenza and other acute respiratory infections. The Mobile Field Unit will deliver sensitive and accurate diagnostic capabilities to resource-limited urban, rural and remote locations where access to conventional clinical laboratories may be precluded.

• Illumina (San Diego) reported a new product for DNA Analysis: the HumanOmni1-Quad BeadChip. With more than 4 million data points on a single BeadChip, this array includes up-to-date content for all major classes of genetic variation for the study of human disease. The BeadChip uses tagSNPs from all three phases of the International HapMap Project and offers premier coverage of known regions of copy number variation (CNV) and SNPs of known disease association. In addition, the HumanOmni1-Quad BeadChip is the first commercially-available product to offer content derived from the 1,000 Genomes Project. The format of the HumanOmni1-Quad BeadChip supports simultaneous genotyping of four samples which increases throughput and decreases the per sample price.

• Light Sciences Oncology (Bellevue, Washington) said that a new pre-clinical study has yielded evidence that the company's novel light-activated drug Aptocine (formerly Litx) may enhance anti-tumor immunity and prevent metastases. Aptocine (talaporfin sodium) is a water-soluble drug activated by an included small, single-use, disposable drug activator. Aptocine is designed to provide tolerable, effective, and repeatable treatments for cancer patients. Packaged with Aptocine, the drug activator contains a tiny array of LEDs at the end of a very narrow (only 1.2 mm wide) flexible coated micro-wire. Administering physicians insert the LED array into a tumor and follow with the intravenous injection of Aptocine. Emitting red light at a discrete frequency and intensity and for a fixed time period, the LEDs activate Aptocine. An energized Aptocine molecule results in the production of singlet oxygen, which can kill target tissues with minimal side effects through vascular closure and apoptosis. Illumination with low-intensity LED light can continuously energize each molecule of Aptocine, resulting in a continuous supply of singlet oxygen molecules.

• Nanobiotix (Paris) reported preclinical results using the nanoXray therapeutics platform to fight tumors. The preclinical study showed that an intratumoral injection of NBTXR3 nanoparticles and activated via standard radiation therapy led to complete tumor regression in mice at 60 days compared with zero tumor regression in mice treated with xray only or NBTXR3 only. Nanobiotix is using technology that it calls 'nanoXray therapeutics' to resolve radiation therapy's biggest drawback: destruction of healthy tissue and its subsequent deleterious side effects when a high dose of X-ray is necessary. The company believes that nanoXray therapeutics offer a dramatic innovation in cancer therapy, based on a technology that is designed to allow destruction of cancer cells only-a new treatment weapon that could be used alone, or in concert with existing anticancer protocols: chemotherapy, surgery, and immunotherapy.