• TargetScan Touch
  • Targeted Biopsy System
  • TargetScan Technology
  • TargetScan Advantages
  • TargetScan Touch Simulator
•    |   
• Professionals
  • Clinical Data
  • TargetScan Specifications
  • TargetScan Literature
•    |   
• Patients
  • Detection
    • Prostate Ultrasound
    • TRUS Ultrasound
    • Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia
    • Prostate Specific Antigen
  • Treatments
    • Brachytherapy
    • Cryotherapy
    • HIFU
    • HDR
  • Patient Experiences
•    |   
• About Prostate Cancer
  • Prostate Cancer Stages
  • Prostate Cancer Biopsy
  • Prostate Cancer Prevention

 

 

Envisioneering finds inspiration from iPhone

 

November 21st, 2008
St. Louis Business Journal

When Envisioneering Medical Technologies President Bob Mills received an Apple iPhone last year, he was so impressed with the touch-screen technology that he asked his engineers to add it to the firm’s prostate cancer treatment device.

The result is an upgraded version of the company’s TargetScan, which completed its testing to meet Food and Drug Administration requirements earlier this week. With that hurdle out of the way, Envisioneering expects to ship five of the new $65,000 systems and pick up orders for five more before Thanksgiving, Mills said.

The potential $650,000 in sales also means the company has a shot at being profitable next year, Mills said.

“I thought, if they can do this in an iPhone and HP has tablet PCs, let’s see if we can adopt the technology,” Mills said. “This is more intuitive for the doctors.”

The redesigned unit is half the size of the original TargetScan and can be packed in suitcase. But what has Mills more excited is the study the British Journal of Urology published last month showing the system detects cancer more frequently and more accurately than traditional biopsies and can more accurately place radioactive seeds to destroy the cancer. “This is our first clinical data,” Mills said.

Mills launched the business four years ago, and in 2006 he raised $8 million from local investors, including Bruce Olson, Robert Hermann Jr. and William Holekamp. This past year, the company raised “substantially more” than the $4 million it sought at investor presentations, Mills said. He declined to say how much or identify any of the new investors.

Prostate cancer is one of the leading cancer killers of men, estimated to kill 28,660 men this year, second only to lung cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.

The Envisioneering system dramatically improves results for patients compared to conventional treatment of the disease, said Dr. James Bennett, a clinical associate professor of urology at Emory University School of Medicine and Morehouse School of Medicine, both in Atlanta.

“I could tell from the beginning this was going to be an important change in how we do prostate brachytherapy,” said Dr. Jeff Michalski, interim chair of radiation oncology at the Siteman Cancer Center in St. Louis and an adviser to Envisioneering.

Envisioneering manufactures parts of the probe used in the system at its facilities in Olivette and outsources manufacturing of other parts of the system, Mills said.

The company, which has a staff of 20, has a partnership with Washington University’s School of Engineering, and has worked with firms here on the design, including Metaphase Design Group.