The Beloit, Wisconsin-based company has received exclusive rights from Capella Imaging to develop and investigate a new fibrin-targeted diagnostic agent that's used in heart imaging exams.
The new radiopharmaceutical has only been tested in mice thus far, but investigators believe it can overcome some of the problems inherent in similarly labeled materials.
"We hope that the tool will one day enable clinicians to determine the most effective doses of specific drugs in specific patients, so as to further optimize the treatment of infectious diseases," investigators of the new trial wrote in Nature Medicine.
Providers believe the digital modality could ultimately provide a more accurate cancer diagnosis compared to conventional PET, authors reported in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
Idaho-based International Isotopes has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for its radioactive therapeutic agent used to treat thyroid cancers.
Randall Batemen, MD, principal investigator of the research and a neurologist at Washington University in St. Louis, told the New York Times the results were "really crushing."
The National Institute on Aging awarded Wake Forest School of Medicine a five-year grant to examine if a novel PET tracer can help researchers tackle the disease.
