Roche to Use Endo-PAT in Clinical Trial

Itamar Medical Ltd. announced last week that it will include its Endo-PAT device with Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche Products Ltd. in a Phase II clinical trial of a drug for the treatment of peripheral arterial disease. Roche will pay $2.7 million for use of the device, which monitors the function of the interior layer of blood vessels.

According to studies by Itamar, the data collected by the Endo-PAT device makes it possible to assess damage in arterial walls. Roche’s use of the device in its own clinical trials essentially certifies Itamar’s own studies.

Itamar Medical president and CEO Dr. Dov Rubin said, “This collaboration strengthens our strategy of using the EndoPAT in a key role in the customized pharmaceutical and diagnostic industry.”

New Endothelial Dysfunction Study Unveiled at ACC 2010

Watch Dr. Matsuzawa lecture on “Digital Assessment of Endothelial Function and Ischemic Heart Disease in Women,” a study performed using EndoPAT technology by Itamar Medical. These are his remarks at ACC 2010:

Medvica, Endo-PAT Featured on KOLD-13 in Tucson

Endo-PAT was featured on a news segment in Tucson, Arizona following the first sale of the device in Arizona by Medvica. Here’s a link to the video:

New York Dentist Using Endo-PAT for Patients

New York City dentist Dr. Reid Winick has been using the Endo-PAT in his dental practice as part of a total wellness program for his patients. With the information gathered from the test, Dr. Winick and his colleagues put their patients on a personalized wellness program and thus a new lease on life.

Dr. Winick says he feels, “we are saving lives one tooth at time.” According to Winick’s web site, the dentist:

“Uses all the knowledge and skills of conventional dental medicine — along with disciplines of alternative, holistic dental therapies — we strive to provide our patients with biocompatible, esthetic, comfortable, functional, and enduring dental and prosthetic placements.”

For more information on endothelial dysfunction and the Endo-PAT, visit www.medvica.com.

Get Your Endothelial Function Tested During American Heart Month

February is American Heart Month and Medvica International can’t think of a better opportunity to ask your physician about your endothelial function.

According to the American Heart Association, 50 percent of coronary deaths take place in people with no previous symptoms including elevated cholesterol levels. However, a new seven year study by the Mayo Clinic released in 2009 suggests measuring blood vessel health, or endothelial function, can aide in diagnosis of a wide variety of medical conditions including coronary artery disease, heart attack, stroke, sleep apnea, pre-eclamptic toxemia and even erectile dysfunction.

Physicians now have a new easy-to-use, non-invasive test to measure endothelial function and Medvica International is among the first companies to market the device in North America. The Endo-PAT2000, developed by Israeli company Itamar-Medical, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2003 and is already used in 40 other countries.

“The connection between endothelial dysfunction and cardiovascular health was one of the most significant medical discoveries of the last decade and earned the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1998 for three Americans,” says Sharon Snyder, chief executive officer for Medvica. “But until recently there wasn’t a credible, FDA approved device to measure endothelial dysfunction. Endo-PAT’s capabilities have now been validated by hundreds of studies and tests at the nation’s top medical organizations including the Mayo Clinic, Harvard University, the New England Medical Center and the Cleveland Clinic.”

Endo-PAT looks for signs of heart disease and other conditions by using sensors that measure blood flow through a patient’s fingers. Endothelial cells line the inner walls of blood vessels, lymph vessels, and the heart, and damage to them may be an early sign of heart disease. The device is small enough to sit on a table and in a 15-minute, office-based test clinicians  can now have a reliable and reproducible index of endothelial function.

The seven-year Mayo Clinic and Tufts-New England Medical Center study published in April 2009 suggests that a patient with low risk (based on Framingham Risk Score) but high endothelial dysfunction is 300 percent more likely to have a heart attack than a patient with low risk and no endothelial dysfunction. In the study, 49 percent of patients whose Endo-PAT test indicated poor endothelial function had a cardiac event during the seven-year study.

Medvica Profiled in Phoenix Business Journal

The Phoenix Business Journal interviewed Medvica CEO Sharon Snyder last week and the article ran on Feb. 5. The article was generally very positive and the reporter even interviewed to physicians to get third party points of view.

Dr. Scott Rollins, medical director of the Integrative Medicine Center of Western Colorado in Grand Junction, heard about the Endo-Pat from a cardiologist he works with. Rollins has been borrowing that specialist’s Endo-Pat and said he intends to buy his own because the technology detects the signs of heart disease even before a CT scan would find plaque building up in the arteries.

The device has been getting tons of press and we’re logging it all on our Facebook page.