The most common cancers in the U.S. are hardly the most expensive to
treat. More Americans come down with breast cancer and lung cancer than any
other types of cancer. The worst cancer from a perspective of expense turns
out to be bladder cancer that is only the 6th most prevalent form
of disease.
There isn't much that can be done if you develop lung cancer. Rarely is
the disease detected before it spreads to other organs; only 15% is
discovered early. If lung cancer has spread, the 5 year survival rate is only
4% according to the American Lung Association. Lung
cancer is cheap to treat because there isn't much you can do about it.
Bladder cancer on the other hand keeps recurring in 40�70% of the cases. The
biggest cost isn't the cost of treatment; it's the cost of testing the
patient again and again every six months to see if the cancer has come back.
The treatment for bladder cancer once detected is to inject the patient a
drug into the bladder that metabolizes in the area of cancer cells. That
takes an hour and ties up the patient, the operating room and the surgeon.
The surgeon cuts out what he can see. But for thirty years doctors have made
endoscopes using white light the standard of detection. One of the big
limitations is that the cancer is only seen if it protrudes higher than the
bladder wall. And the surgeons want to leave as much of the bladder as they
can so they often leave remnants of the cancer that reoccur.
The latest change in endoscopes was in 2010 when health care introduced
the use of blue filters for a better image but still the doctor has to switch
back and forth between the white light image and the blue filter image. The
white light shows the entire bladder but not the cancer. The blue filter
shows the cancer but not the bladder.
The biggest challenge facing the medical industry regarding bladder cancer
is to come up with something that does a better job of detecting the cancer
so the surgeon can remove all of it and cut down on the problem of
reoccurrence. If bladder cancer didn't keep coming back, the cost of
detecting could be a one-time expense, not a constant and continuing cost.
CEO Jim Hutchens heads Imagin
Medical Inc. (IME:CSE). He founded two medical device companies in the
past. The device his technical team has come up with makes use of the
simultaneous acquisition of images from both the white light system and the
fluorescence filter to blend them into a single actionable picture that puts
the cancer into context. This system "sees" the cancer in 15
minutes as compared to one hour with prior devices and the optics are 100,000
times more sensitive.
This new device not only cuts down time in the operating room but also can
be used in ordinary physicians' offices for whatever regular checkups are
necessary. It's not evolutionary. It's revolutionary and highly disruptive.
Dr. Stavros Demos developed the concept while at the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory in California. Dr. Demos collaborated with Dr. Ralph
deVere White, an internationally recognized leading authority on bladder
cancer, in a five-year program to determine feasibility. The final stages of
development took place at the University of Rochester Laboratory for Laser
Energetics in New York.
Imagin Medical only began trading in February. They did a capital raise in
September to fund development of a working prototype that is expected by
year-end. Clinical evaluations will begin in Q1 of 2017 with
commercialization by mid-2018. The FDA presentation will begin in Q4 of 2016
with the application and clearance continuing into mid-2018.
According to the CDC, health care costs in the United
States total over $3 trillion a year and the cost of care is $9,523 per
capita (2014). Illness is big business and growing. The total national health
care costs are 17.5% of GDP. Development of a new drug or a new medical
device can easily be worth billions. On September 19 the FDA approved a new
drug for treatment of the most common form of muscular dystrophy from Sarepta
Therapeutics Inc. (SRPT:NASDAQ) and their shares soared by 74% in a day. That
one-day move added $1.1 billion to their market cap. Sickness in the US is
indeed big business.
Imagin Medical owns the right to a device five years in the planning and
testing stage. They have under 40 million shares and trade for under $0.10
Canadian for a market cap of under $4 million. The device either does what
they claim or it doesn't. Presuming they can raise the money to advance it to
production and market it successfully they will have a very valuable medical
device. If they fail utterly, the shares go to nothing. If they succeed, they
go a lot higher.
Imagin is an advertiser and I am biased. It's an interesting story and
concept and I hope they succeed. Their website is highly informative and I
know they will be working hard to make sure the market understands their
story. Do your own due diligence.
Imagin Medical Inc.
IME-C $0.095 (Sep 20, 2016)
IMEXF OTCBB 39.7 million shares
Imagin Medical website
Bob and Barb Moriarty brought 321gold.com
to the Internet almost 14 years ago. They later added 321energy.com to
cover oil, natural gas, gasoline, coal, solar, wind and nuclear energy. Both
sites feature articles, editorial opinions, pricing figures and updates on
current events affecting both sectors. Previously, Moriarty was a Marine F-4B
and O-1 pilot with more than 820 missions in Vietnam. He holds 14
international aviation records.
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is an advertiser. I determined which companies would be included in this
article based on my research and understanding of the sector.
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