Vancouver’s Verisante Technology Inc. (TSX:VRS) will be getting some financial help from the BC Cancer Agency to further develop and commercialize a device that can aid in the detection of skin cancer.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has approved a $292,000 grant to the BC Cancer Agency, which in turn will use the money to help the company finalize testing and optimization of its Verisante Aura device. As part of the funding arrangement, Verisante will contribute $303,800.
Thomas Braun, president and CEO of Verisante, said the grant not only helps the company financially, it also helps lend credibility to its technology.
“Some people think that it’s quite important in terms of validating the technology,” he told Business in Vancouver.
The Verisante Aura uses a pen-sized spectroscope that scans the skin and can detect cancer bio-markers. A positive reading tells the physician the patient should have a biopsy. Negative readings would mean many costly biopsies could be avoided.
Braun said he has heard of one case, in Australia, where a patient had to have 82 biopsies. He said the Verisante Aura would help doctors eliminate some of those tests as unnecessary.
The device has been in use at Vancouver General Hospital as part of a clinical study for six years, but is not yet available commercially. Braun hopes to see it on the market by the end of this year.
In addition to the Aura spectroscope, Verisante also has developed an endoscopic scan – called the Verisante Core – that can scan for lung, colon and cervical cancers. Braun said the work being funded with the help of the CIHR grant will also help the company develop that technology.
“Almost all the work we’re doing also applies to the endoscopic version.”
Verisante’s technology was developed when T-Ray Science Inc. (which became Verisante Technology Inc.) entered into a licensing arrangement with the BC Cancer Agency to market and manufacture the Verisante Aura and Core technologies. (See “Private sector, academia and research labs combine forces to battle deadly diseases” – January 4-10; issue 1106.)
Nelson Bennett