InfraScan Receives $2M Contract from U.S. Marine Corps / Navy and to Develop a Field Deployable Handheld Device for Early Detection of Brain Bleeding

Philadelphia, PA -- July 19, 2010 –  InfraScan, a medical device firm specializing in brain injury diagnostic products, announced today that it has signed a $2 million contract with the U.S. Marine Corps / Navy. The project provides for advanced technology development, safety testing, and field evaluation activities to develop a next-generation version of the company’s Infrascanner brain hematoma detector. The Infrascanner is a small, completely portable device, which can detect the presence and location of a brain hematoma based on differential NIR light absorption of a hematoma and normal brain tissue. It is the first hand-held device of its kind designed to assist first responders and emergency room personnel in identifying life threatening brain hematomas, and allowing expedient assessment of patients and facilitating crucial treatment.

“The InfraScan team is honored and very pleased to receive this contract from the U.S. Marine Corps,” said Baruch Ben Dor, PhD, president and CEO of InfraScan.  “This contract extends the use of our potentially life-saving Infrascanner hand-held imaging device to those who serve our country. We believe this is an outstanding use of this product’s capabilities and the team’s product development capacity.”

InfraScan’s proposal was accepted in its entirety in response to a proposal request by the Naval Health Research Center Broad Agency Announcement. The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)Commercialization Pilot Program contract transitions a successful SBIR Phase 2 project initiated by theOffice of Naval Research into the hands of the eventual end users in the Marine Corps. The contract is focused on creating a portable device for detection of traumatic brain injuries in operational environments such as battlefields. Head wounds lead to nearly 50% of combat deaths.In the battlefield setting, it is necessary to triage patients with severe injuries. Intracranial hematomas resulting from a traumatic brain injury are life-threatening and patient outcomes can improve significantly if treated within an hour after an injury – known as the “golden hour”. While most U.S.hospitals have a Computer Aided Tomography (CAT) scanner, which is viewed as the state-of-the-art technology for diagnosing a brain hematoma, remote battlefields and many facilities lack the neurosurgical capabilities to treat the condition. The early identification of a brain hematoma can play a significant role in facilitating transportation of critically injured patients to facilities, which can both verify Infrascanner’s early screening and offer surgical intervention. 

In the general population, an estimated 1.5 million inpiduals seek medical treatment for head trauma in the U.S. each year, and a total of 10 million inpiduals seek head trauma treatment annually worldwide. In addition to the Infrascanner’s first application for detecting brain hematomas, the company is pursuing additional applications for the product, including the monitoring of stroke victims using the same NIR technology. 

The Infrascanner has obtained its CE mark, European marketing clearance, and is now being marketed in Russia, Italy, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Panama, Turkey and India.  Further sales and marketing networks are being established in additional countries and regions.  The company has conducted a pivotal (430 patient) multicenter study in the U.S. and has made a DeNovo application to the U.S. FDA. The product is currently under review with FDA.

About InfraScan – InfraScan, Inc. is a medical device company that focuses on developing, commercializing and distributing hand-held diagnostic devices for head injury and stroke based on near infrared (NIR) technologies. The company has received early-stage funding from the U.S. Marine Corps, Office of Naval Research, BioAdvance, the Biotechnology Greenhouse of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, and from the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation. For more information visit www.infrascanner.com.

Corporate Contact: 

• Baruch Ben Dor, PhD 
• President and CEO 
• InfraScan, Inc. 
• 215-387-6784