Healthcare Industry News: cesium
News Release - November 18, 2009
IsoRay Announces Distribution Agreement in Canada
RICHLAND, Wash.--(HSMN NewsFeed)--IsoRay, Inc. (Amex: ISR ) announced today that it has signed a distribution agreement with Inter V Medical of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Inter V Medical will have exclusive rights to sell cesium-131 Brachytherapy seeds in Canada, which have been previously approved by Health Canada.Inter V Medical has been bringing new medical technologies, including brachytherapy and related products, to the Canadian market for nearly twenty years.
Richard Wood, Inter V Medical Vice President of Business Development, commented, “Having been in brachytherapy, we were able to see immediately the huge advantages to cesium-131—in particular, its short half life and higher dose rate. This should translate into lower cancer cell survival.”
Mr. Wood continued, “While cesium-131 will be sold at a premium to other isotopes in Canada, nothing comes close to it in what it does for a man’s quality of life. We believe if this message is delivered clearly to the Canadian male population suffering with prostate cancer, many of those men will opt for cesium-131 as their preferred choice of treatment. When they carry this message to their Doctors, then we will be there to insure that all Canadian specialists in Uro-Oncology and Radiation Oncology are aware of the many benefits of cesium-131. We believe cesium-131 has an even brighter future treating other types of cancer, namely lung, breast and neck. For all of these reasons, it was necessary to protect our position as the exclusive distributor for Canada.”
Inter V Medical brings to IsoRay Medical a team of nine dedicated sales professionals strategically placed across Canada.
Dwight Babcock, Chairman and CEO, stated, “We are very excited to partner with such an outstanding group as Inter V Medical in Canada. Inter V Medical has well-established relationships with the physicians who are interested in incorporating cesium-131 into their practices and will help expedite the penetration of the Canadian market. We will be partnering on all current and future IsoRay products.”
About IsoRay
IsoRay, Inc., through its subsidiary, IsoRay Medical, Inc., is the sole producer of the cesium-131 brachytherapy seed.
The cesium-131 seed offers a significantly shorter radiation half-life than the two other isotopes commonly used for brachytherapy, which results in a substantially faster delivery of therapeutic radiation, a theoretically improved radiation delivery against aggressively replicating cancer(a), and the potential for a reduced longevity of common brachytherapy side effects(b).
cesium-131 is currently used in the treatment or prostate cancer(c) and ocular melanoma(d), among other cancerous conditions.
IsoRay is based in Richland, Washington. More information is available about IsoRay at www.isoray.com.
(a) Armpilia CI, Dale RG, Coles IP, et al. The Determination of Radiobiologically Optimized Half-lives for Radionuclides Used in Permanent Brachytherapy Implants. International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, and Physics 2003;55(2):378-385.
(b) DeFoe SG, Beriwal S, Smith R, Benoit R. Is there decreased duration of acute urinary and bowel symptoms after prostate brachytherapy with cesium 131 isotope? International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, and Physics 2008;72(S1):S317.
(c) Bice WS, Prestidge BR, Kurtzman SM, Beriwal S, Moran BJ, Patel RR, Rivard, MJ. Recommendations for permanent prostate brachytherapy with (131)Cs: a consensus report from the cesium advisory group. Brachytherapy 2008;7(4):290-6.
(d) Melhus CS, Rivard MJ. COMS eye plaque brachytherapy dosimetry simulations for 103Pd, 125I, and 131Cs. Medical Physics 2008;35(7):3364-71.
Safe Harbor Statement
Statements in this news release about IsoRay's future expectations, including: the advantages of our Proxcelan cesium-131 seed, whether IsoRay and Inter V will continue to meet Health Canada's requirements and expectations to sell Proxcelan in Canada, whether IsoRay’s relationships with Inter V and Canadian physicians will result in sales in Canada, whether IsoRay's cesium-131 seed will be used to treat additional cancers and malignant disease, whether physicians and facilities will adopt Cs-131 for use for non-prostate cancers, future demand for IsoRay's existing and planned products, and all other statements in this release, other than historical facts, are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 ("PSLRA"). This statement is included for the express purpose of availing IsoRay, Inc. of the protections of the safe harbor provisions of the PSLRA. It is important to note that actual results and ultimate corporate actions could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements based on such factors as physician acceptance, training and use of our products, our ability to successfully manufacture, market and sell our products, our ability to manufacture our products in sufficient quantities to meet demand within required delivery time periods while meeting our quality control standards, our ability to enforce our intellectual property rights, whether additional studies are released and support the conclusions of early clinical studies, patient results achieved when cesium-131 is used for the treatment of cancers and malignant diseases beyond prostate cancer, changing levels of demand for IsoRay's current and proposed future products, changes in laws and regulations applicable to our product both in the United States and internationally, and other risks detailed from time to time in IsoRay's reports filed with the SEC.
Source: IsoRay
Issuer of this News Release is solely responsible for its
content.
Please address inquiries directly to the issuing company.
