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The largest medical technology accelerator selects Novian for its groundbreaking laser treatment for breast cancer
CHICAGO, IL., SEPTEMBER 23, 2020 – Novian Health Inc., a pioneer in destroying breast tumors with laser treatments, announced that it has been selected by as one of 50 companies in MedTech Innovator’s flagship four-month Showcase and Accelerator program.
MedTech Innovator is the largest accelerator of medical devices in the world. Each year, it assesses more than 1000 startups in a quest to find the “most transformative device, diagnostic, and digital health technologies from around the globe.” The chosen companies are then given unparalleled access to investors, manufacturers, and providers, including the opportunity to present at the annual MedTech conference of the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), which will be held virtually this year on Oct 5-7. Novian Health will present its novel technology for the ablation of early-stage breast tumors at the conference.
“Being selected by MedTech Innovator is both an important validation of our potentially game-changing technology for fighting breast cancer and a huge opportunity for us to accelerate its development so that we can bring it to patients more quickly,” said Henry Appelbaum, president and CEO of Novian Health.
More than 275,000 women in the U.S. and 2 million around the world are diagnosed with breast cancer every year. About two-thirds of early-stage breast cancer patients and their doctors will opt to remove the tumors surgically in a breast-conserving procedure called lumpectomy. But the procedure is not without flaws. It requires an operating room, general anesthesia, and several days of recovery. It also leaves a scar and can change the shape of the woman’s breast. And it’s not completely effective: more than 25% of women with lumpectomies will need more surgery because the entire tumor was not removed during the initial surgical procedure.
Novian Health’s Novilase® Breast Therapy overcomes these limitations by using a laser to focally destroy the tumor. Guided by ultrasound imaging, similar to a biopsy, doctors insert a laser probe directly into the tumor, along with a temperature probe placed just outside the tumor. When the laser is turned on, it heats the cells in the tumor to 60°C or 140 degrees F—enough to kill the cancerous cells. A multi-center trial published in the Annuals of Surgical Oncology in 2018 found that, for tumors smaller than 1.5 cm, Novilase completely destroyed the cancer in 98% of patients. Moreover, the procedure is done on an out-patient basis using local anesthesia, at about half the cost of a lumpectomy, and with minimal pain and a recovery time of hours instead of days. There is minimal scar and no change in breast shape. “It is incredibly exciting for women to be able to have their breast cancer treated without surgery,” said Margaret Chen, MD, FACS, chief of breast cancer surgery at ProHEALTH Care in New York, who participated in the studies of Novilase at Columbia University Medical Center.
Based on the successful clinical trial results, Novian Health received CE Mark approval in 2019 to commercialize its technology in the European Union (EU) and Switzerland. It also has approval to move ahead with the pivotal clinical trial needed to get clearance for focal destruction of malignant breast tumors in the United States from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Novilase had already been cleared by the FDA as an alternative to surgery for the treatment of benign breast tumors, or fibroadenomas.
For MedTech Innovator, the choice of Novian Health as a Showcase company was not a difficult one, given the laser technology’s enormous potential for transforming the treatment of early stage breast cancer. “It is one of the rare technologies that holds the promise of not only improving outcomes for breast cancer patients, but also reducing both the costs of the treatment and the pain that women experience,” explained Paul Grand, CEO of MedTech Innovator.
ABOUT NOVIAN HEALTH INC.
Based in Chicago, with a subsidiary in Evry, France, Novian Health Inc. is a privately held medical device company with proprietary technology for the treatment of tumors using Interstitial Laser Therapy. For more information, call (312) 266-7200 or access www.novianhealth.com.
