• Biophan Technologies (West Henrietta, New York) reported the issuance of two new patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that it said further extend the company's competitive edge in the marketplace for the rapidly emerging field of MRI safety and image compatibility for surgical instruments and implanted devices. One of the new patents covers new methods to produce a variety of nanomagnetic coatings to shield medical equipment within an MRI environment. It includes a broad claim regarding how these coatings can be used in a variety of applications, including the reduction of heating in medical devices under MRI; to selectively generate heat for cancer treatments or to control drug release; to reduce image artifacts under MRI; or to enable unimpeded MRI visualization of devices that have been traditionally difficult to see effectively under MRI. The other newly issued patent extends Bipphan's protection for next-generation MRI-safe techniques using fiber-optics to power biomedical sensors and therapeutic devices. The patent teaches how a variety of sensors, probes, and medical therapies can be remotely powered and can communicate over a fiber-optic cable by powering the remote probe with short pulses of light. The light energy is converted to electrical energy to power the probes and to send data back to a device where they can be analyzed. This technology can be applied to devices used outside the body or part of an implantable device.

• Current Technology (Vancouver, British Columbia), said it has received the CE mark for its ETG (ElectroTrichoGenesis) Mark I device for treating hair loss. “Issuance of the CE mark has particular significance in Asia,“ said CEO Robert Kramer. “We are now in a position to commence the final steps required to deliver ETG devices to Malaysia, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Taiwan.“ He added that the company is negotiating distribution agreements for Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Australia. “This dynamic part of the world holds significant promise for us in 2005,“ Kramer said. ETG treatment centers are presently available in 11 countries.

• Elekta (Norcross, Georgia) said that FDA clearance of the Elekta Beam Modulator offers lung and spine cancer patients new hope through more accurate treatments that spare more of the surrounding healthy tissue. It noted that such cancers have always been the most difficult to treat due to respiratory motion and the proximity of critical organs. The Elekta Beam Modulator is a precision multi-leaf collimator designed for use with Elekta's medical linear accelerators. It shapes the radiation beam to more closely conform to the exact shape of the tumor, thereby allowing greater accuracy and smaller treatment fields, the company said. This makes the Elekta technology “ideal for targeting typically difficult-to-treat cancers of the lung and spine, as well as other sites in the body,“ it said.

• Genzyme (Cambridge, Massachusetts) said the first patient has been treated in a new Phase II clinical trial examining the safety and effectiveness of locally delivered gene transfer for patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD). Genzyme's experimental therapy, using Ad2/HIF-1 alpha, an engineered form of the HIF-1 alpha gene, is designed to promote the growth of new blood vessels and improve circulation in patients' limbs. The randomized, placebo-controlled study will take place at up to 35 medical centers in the U.S. and Europe. It will enroll up to 300 patients diagnosed with severe intermittent claudication, a type of PAD that results in disabling pain or fatigue in the legs, brought on by exercise. Plans are to enroll 75 patients each into one of three dosing groups or a placebo arm. In addition to safety, the trial will evaluate the effectiveness of each dose in several measures of efficacy.