Corporate News

Polarean Imaging plc (AIM: POLX), the medical-imaging technology company, with a proprietary drug-device combination product for the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) market, announces the Company has received its latest research unit order for a 9820 Xenon Polariser system from The Hospital for Sick Children (“SickKids”) in Toronto www.sickkids.ca.  

SickKids is a major paediatric research and teaching hospital and already has an earlier model Polarean polariser (which was recently upgraded). This new unit will expand SickKids’ ongoing paediatric research programme using hyperpolarised gas imaging. Their order was enabled by a grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (“CFI”) www.innovation.ca/about. Following receipt of this order, the total number of the Company’s polarisers that are either installed or on order is 24.

Richard Hullihen, CEO of Polarean, said: "We are very happy to extend our long-standing relationship with SickKids Hospital in Toronto who work tirelessly on the paediatric applications of hyperpolarised xenon imaging for this important patient population.”

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) 596/2014.

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About Polarean (www.polarean.com)

The Company and its wholly owned subsidiary, Polarean, Inc. (together the "Group") are revenue generating, medical drug-device combination companies operating in the high resolution medical imaging market.

The Group develops equipment that enables existing MRI systems to achieve an improved level of pulmonary function imaging and specialises in the use of hyperpolarised Xenon gas (129Xe) as an imaging agent to visualise ventilation and gas exchange regionally in the smallest airways of the lungs, the tissue barrier between the lung and the bloodstream and in the pulmonary vasculature. Xenon gas exhibits solubility and signal properties that enable it to be imaged within other tissues and organs.

The Group operates in an area of significant unmet medical need and the Group's technology provides a novel diagnostic approach, offering a non-invasive and radiation-free functional imaging platform which is more accurate and less harmful to the patient than current methods. The annual burden of pulmonary disease in the US is estimated to be over US$150 billion.

The Group also develops and manufactures high performance MRI radiofrequency (RF) coils which are a required component for imaging ¹²⁹Xe in the MRI system. The development of these coils by the Group facilitates the adoption of the Xenon technology by providing application-specific RF coils which optimise the imaging of ¹²⁹Xe in MRI equipment for use as a medical diagnostic as well as a method of monitoring the efficacy of therapeutic intervention.