Just a note from Ellen this morning
No this isn’t the last news release – there are more coming in the near future
We have a lot of interest in North America and the EU, but we can’t announce anything until we get a purchase order, which took 5 months with our last sale. Let’s hope other hospitals are a little quicker with the paperwork.
Today, we released follow-on news about our new VMS+ software (only) solution for the whole-heart analysis of 3D echocardiograms.
Here is some background:
1. We are now approved in Europe, Canada and USA for the VMS+ software (only) solution for the whole-heart analysis of 3D echocardiograms. We announced this yesterday. Today, we announce the first sale in Europe of this product.
2. Dr. Laser and his group have already published an excellent paper on using the VMS for analysis of RV in children. He expects to do the same for LV, which he tells us is not well measured using existing software packages from the major vendors (GE, Phillips, Toshiba) for 3D echocardiograms. It is wonderful have someone who uses everyone’s software and trusts ours and not the others.
3. He already has the 3D scans and the MRI scans for the same patients so he can complete this study quickly.
4. We do not expect to sell thousands of this product in the next few years as only 2% of heart exams are done with 3D echo. You only get an image you can analyze 40-50% of the time and the scanning is much more difficult - so only used for research or in a few selected clinical settings such as CHD in children with suspected valve problems or pulmonary hypertension. There are over 400 paediatric centres in Europe so depending on how quickly 3D is adopted in these sites, the sales could ramp nicely. Dr. Laser is advocating for the use 3D in children more often.
5. 98% of all echocardiograms are done with 2D, which is our primary product, the VMS+ system. As you know we have been improving this system and will soon showcase this smaller, menu-driven product that allows for patient movement during the scanning exam.
6. Our business today is still focused on selling VMS+ systems (hardware and software) for 2D use, but eventually we expect the major vendors (GE, Siemens, Phillips, Mindray, Samsung, Hitachi, Toshiba) to improve the 3D hardware to obtain 70-80% readable images and then our business will switch to selling software only most of the time, but there will still be a need for the VMS+ hardware 20-30% of the time, so we will be selling both products to cardiac hospitals.
7. In the meantime, we can sell the software only to researchers and some paediatric clinical centres who have really invested in 3D equipment and training and get some clinical experience on how to do the analysis of 3D images better, faster, easier and maybe automated. We see the future (a decade or more from now) as automated 3D analysis 70% of the time and automated 2D analysis 30% of the time and we want to be the software package everyone uses for both imaging modalities.
