Profound Medical Signs Co-Education Deal With Telix To Pair PSMA-PET Imaging With TULSA-PRO
Profound is also developing PSMA-PET–MR image fusion for a planned future release of its Treatment Delivery Console software.
Profound Medical, maker of the MRI-guided TULSA-PRO prostate ablation system, entered a co-education agreement with radiopharmaceutical company Telix Pharmaceuticals on Friday, according to an 8-K filing. The two will jointly teach physicians how PSMA-PET scans and TULSA-PRO fit together.
What the agreement covers
Under a press release attached to the filing, the companies intend to educate urologists, radiologists, nuclear medicine physicians and prostate cancer centers. The subject is how Telix's PSMA-targeting PET imaging agents, Gozellix and Illuccix, complement Profound's TULSA-PRO platform.
Planned activities include major medical society meetings, key opinion leader programs, educational summits, speaker programs and webinars. The companies also plan educational content, clinical case studies and best-practice materials.
CEO Arun Menawat said the deal "increases our access to urologists across the U.S. and internationally." He added that Telix's PSMA-PET capabilities inside TULSA-PRO centers could strengthen their clinical and economic value proposition.
Kevin Richardson, CEO of Telix Precision Medicine, said the aim is to raise awareness of the complementary roles of PSMA-PET imaging and MRI-guided therapy.
The software plan and the patient-selection case
Profound is developing PSMA-PET–MR image fusion for a planned future release of its Treatment Delivery Console software. The company says the feature would bring Telix's diagnostic PSMA-PET data into treatment planning using real-time MR images taken during the procedure. It describes this as more precise than rival approaches that register old diagnostic data to real-time ultrasound.
Profound says PSMA-PET may show whether higher-risk patients still suit the procedure, by spotting distant metastases or disease beyond the prostate. It believes that could allow more precise patient stratification and potentially widen the population considered for TULSA.
Chief Technology Officer Mathieu Burtnyk said about 85% of prostate cancers are multifocal, versus about 15% unifocal, citing a 2009 paper. He said molecular imaging may help identify the roughly 15-25% of patients who are candidates for focal ablation.
What to watch
Profound has not given a date for the Treatment Delivery Console release that would include the image fusion. Profound shares traded at $6.90, down about 0.14% from the prior close, in Friday trading (market data).
The software release is the next concrete test of the collaboration, and the company has not dated it.
Sources
- 8-K Filing — Profound Medical Corp. (PROF) — SEC EDGAR
- Exhibit exh_991.htm — Profound Medical Corp. 8-K exhibit — SEC EDGAR
- Profound Medical and Telix Pharmaceuticals Enter Co-Education Agreement to Advance PSMA-Informed Prostate Care | Financial Post — financialpost.com
