Volcano’s Axsun Laser - At the Heart of OCT
SAN DIEGO and BARCELONA, Spain, May 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Volcano Corporation , a leader in the development, manufacturing and sales of products for the diagnosis of coronary and peripheral artery disease, today highlights its technology leadership position in the emerging field of Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) at the EuroPCR conference in Barcelona, Spain.
Volcano’s wholly owned subsidiary, Axsun, has developed what we believe to be a truly revolutionary new class of ultra-miniaturized external cavity lasers that are expected to power the highest performance OCT systems for intracoronary and other medical imaging segments. These lasers are orders of magnitude smaller and more robust than any high performance medical imaging laser commercially available today. Smaller than individual keys on a laptop keyboard, the ultra-miniaturized Axsun lasers provide remarkable performance and reliability in a package nearly impervious to shock and vibration. The result is an optical engine that is expected to enable broad proliferation of OCT imaging into a number of medical fields in a wide variety of form factors.
In addition to powering Volcano’s own future OCT systems, Volcano also supplies this new laser source to LightLab for use in their state-of-the-art OCT imaging system through Axsun Technologies (a wholly owned Volcano subsidiary), as previously announced.
Scott Huennekens, President and CEO of Volcano, commented, “We know from our many years of experience in the IVUS imaging business that simplicity, reliability and cost-effectiveness are just as important to the medical field as imaging performance and resolution. To date, development of the OCT market has been hampered because the lasers used were expensive, cumbersome and not as robust. With our new Axsun laser powering the leading OCT systems, Volcano is enabling a true breakthrough in the industry - a breakthrough that is the result of a 10 year development effort and an investment of over $150 million dollars. We’re proud to be a driver of this field and again the technology leader in this important new area of medical imaging. Lightlab’s decision to incorporate an Axsun laser into its systems further supports the potential of this technology.”
Mr. Huennekens continued, “To our knowledge, Volcano’s Axsun laser is by far the smallest and simplest high performance external cavity laser available in the world. This miniaturization is expected to provide huge benefits to the medical community in terms of system reliability, form-factor flexibility and ruggedness. In fact, our quality engineers are testing to Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) rates measured in decades, not days or years. Despite its ultra small size, this new class of lasers is able to provide extraordinary levels of speed and performance, which should result in superior image quality and allow for very rapid image acquisition times and streamlined procedural workflows.”
Live Cases and Exhibition Presence
Volcano also plans to highlight its current OCT system and catheter in live case presentations at EuroPCR 2009 from the ThoraxCenter in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Volcano’s enhanced CoreVue system features improved catheter performance, enhanced field of view and a simplified graphical user interface. We will also display these new improvements in our expanded exhibition booth throughout the week. Volcano’s OCT system is an investigational device and is not yet cleared for commercial sale in Europe or the US.
Expansion of Clinical Sites
Volcano also announced the expansion of participating clinical sites for further development of its OCT system. Sites including the ThoraxCenter in Rotterdam, the Cardiovascular Center in Aalst, Belgium and University Hospital in Krakow, Poland are now using Volcano’s OCT in a wide variety of clinical settings including acute and stable patient populations in the assessment of lumen and vessel structures. Volcano plans to further expand the number of sites using its high resolution imaging product in the coming months.
About Volcano
Volcano Corporation offers a broad suite of devices designed to facilitate endovascular procedures, enhance the diagnosis of vascular and structural heart disease and guide optimal therapies. The company’s intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) product line includes ultrasound consoles that can be integrated directly into virtually any modern cath lab. Volcano IVUS offers unique features, including both single-use phased array and rotational IVUS imaging catheters, and advanced functionality options, such as VH(R) IVUS tissue characterization and ChromaFlo(R). Volcano also provides functional measurement (FM) consoles and single-use pressure and flow guide wires and is developing a line of ultra-high resolution Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) and Forward Looking IVUS systems and catheters. Currently, more than 4,200 Volcano IVUS and FM systems are installed worldwide, with approximately half of its revenues coming from outside the United States. Through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Axsun Technologies, Volcano also develops and manufactures optical monitors, lasers and optical engines used in spectroscopy and other industrial applications. These products are sold to a variety of customers including Nokia Siemens, Erikson, Alcatel Lucent and Huawei.
For more information, visit the company’s website at http://www.volcanocorp.com.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements in this release regarding Volcano’s business that are not historical facts may be considered “forward-looking statements,” including statements regarding the features, functionality and potential benefits of our products and patient outcomes, the market potential of the Axsun laser or Volcano’s OCT system acceptance and adoption of the company’s technology and growth and market development. Forward-looking statements are based on management’s current preliminary expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties, which may cause Volcano’s results to differ materially and adversely from the statements contained herein. Some of the potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the results predicted are detailed in the company’s annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and other filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. Volcano undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect new information, events or circumstances after the date they were made, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
CONTACT: Joe Burnett, Vice President, Marketing and Business Unit Leader,
Image Guided Therapy of Volcano Corporation, +1-916-638-8008,
jburnett@volcanocorp.com
Web site: http://www.volcanocorp.com/
