




Healthcare Industry News: breast brachytherapy
News Release - April 7, 2009
Cianna Medical Completes Funding Round for SAVI Technology
ALISO VIEJO, Calif.--(HSMN NewsFeed)--Cianna Medical announced today that it has successfully completed a funding round totaling more than $10 million. The funding will be used to further accelerate commercialization of the company’s proprietary SAVI™ technology for breast cancer brachytherapy.“Our ability to raise money from knowledgeable, highly regarded investors, despite the challenging economic environment, is further evidence that SAVI is a breakthrough technology,” said Jill Anderson, Cianna’s President and CEO. “Cianna’s mission is to make the benefits of breast brachytherapy available to more women. It’s gratifying to achieve this goal thanks to the strength of our technology and because of SAVI’s increasingly broad acceptance among radiation oncologists, surgeons and patients.”
The innovative SAVI applicator provides a shortened course of high-dose radiation therapy for early-stage breast cancer patients following lumpectomy surgery. Carefully contoured radiation is delivered from within the breast and targets the area where the cancer is most likely to recur. SAVI allows physicians to precisely target radiation to the area that needs it most, minimizing exposure to healthy tissue. This approach reduces treatment time from six or seven weeks -- which is generally required with conventional whole-breast irradiation -- to just five days.
The technology’s effectiveness has been documented in a number of scientific studies, most recently in a peer-reviewed paper published by University of California, San Diego researchers in Radiation and Oncology (the “Green Journal”).
Cianna Medical was created as a spinout from BioLucent, Inc. concurrent with the sale of BioLucent’s MammoPad breast cushion business to Hologic, Inc. in 2007 -- the same year the company received 510(k) clearance for SAVI from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Cianna’s first funding round of $9 million was completed in February 2008.
About Cianna Medical, Inc.
Cianna Medical, Inc. is a medical device company focused on women’s health and dedicated to the innovative treatment of early-stage breast cancer. The company manufactures and markets the SAVI breast brachytherapy applicator, for the delivery of radiation after lumpectomy surgery. The SAVI applicator is designed to make the benefits of accelerated partial breast irradiation and breast brachytherapy available to a greater number of women. For more information, call (toll-free) 866-920-9444 or visit www.CiannaMedical.com.
Source: Cianna Medical
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