Health Check: Hearts aflutter as Echo IQ aces deal with major US teaching hospital

Harvard University’s teaching hospital will adopt Echo IQ’s AI-based aortic stenosis detection tool
Immuron trots out its Travelan agenda at its AGM
Oncosil goes hot and cold with latest distribution deals

Echo IQ (ASX:EIQ) has won the support of a top-tier US hospital, which has agreed to use the company’s AI-based aortic stenosis detection tool for routine detection of the potentially deadly disorder.

The compact is with the Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the main teaching hospital for Harvard University.

The hospital came on board after testing the tool, Echosolv-AS, across 31,000 stored patient echocardiograms.

As with Echo IQ’s own trials, Echosolv-AS was almost perfectly accurate in detecting aortic stenosis in the case of patients who fell within the established risk guidelines.

But the tool also detected about 1000 asymptomatic patients who were, in fact, very much at risk.

Aortic stenosis is the narrowing of the heart valves due to calcification, resulting in eventual heart failure because it’s harder for the heart to pump the claret.

The condition can only be treated with a valve replacement, with earlier intervention producing a better result.

Patients classed as being at severe risk will get a valve transplant, but the trouble is 30-50% of patients are misdiagnosed. Females are 66% less likely to be diagnosed accurately, because the guidelines don’t consider that a woman’s heart and arteries are smaller.

Unlike traditional diagnosis, Echo IQ’s platform doesn’t rely on blood obstruction measurement to detect aortic stenosis.

Instead, it uses machine learning to enhance clinical detection and flag patients that may have been missed.

Since winning US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approval in October, the company has been honing its US commercialisation – and, crucially, reimbursement – strategy.

Echo IQ chief commercial officer Deon Strydom says the ‘integration agreement’ with Beth Israel provides crucial endorsement of the life-changing benefits of Echosolv-AS.

“If Beth Israel adopts this AI, the other [leading hospitals] are forced to as it then established as best practice,” he says.

“This is one of the best of the best hospitals saying, ‘we need help with aortic stenosis diagnoses’.”

Strydom says Echo IQ has taken the approach of winning endorsement from big-name hospitals ahead of seeking reimbursement codes from private insurers and the Medicare/Medicaid system.

The Beth Israel deal won’t result in immediate revenue, with the hospital permitted to use the tool gratis on the understanding it will pay per-test once reimbursement is established.

Meanwhile, Echo IQ is in discussions with one of the top five US private hospital groups, accounting for 41 facilities.

Strydom notes Echo IQ has ‘approved vendor’ status, but the deal is not yet done.

On 10% penetration of the US aortic stenosis detection market, the company estimates $US6.5 million of recurring revenue.

Echo IQ shares this morning were 7% higher at 24 cents.

Immuron hot to trot on clinical trials

According to Travelan owner Immuron (ASX:IMC), the definition of travellers’ diarrhoea is the passage of more than three unformed stools in 24 hours, plus at least one additional symptom such as nausea and “faecal urgency”.

We always thought it was more a case of ‘if you have it, you know you have it’.

As outlined at this morning’s AGM, Travelan is benefiting from a post-Covid surge in travel, with sales up 172% in the 2023-24 year (to a record $4.86 million).

October was then a record month with $1.49 million of sales.

Derived from the goodness of colostrum (cow’s milk), Travelan is intended as a prophylactic to be taken before travel, rather than for plugging the problem after the fact.

But Immuron’s ambitions for the well-established brand don’t end there.

Following feedback from the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), Immuron next year hopes to launch a phase III ‘challenge’ trial for a strain known as ETEC, using healthy volunteers.

The company also hopes to move to phase II using a variant, IMC-529 as an adjunct therapy for the recurrent Clostridioides difficile, which affects about 7-46 per 100,000 people.

This would be in combination with standard of care antibiotics. “To our knowledge, IMM-529 to date is the only investigational drug that has shown therapeutic potential in all three stages of the disease,” the company says.

Meanwhile, Immuron has two separate programs sponsored by arms of the US military.

After all, diarrhoea is the biggest infectious disease risk for troops on the ground and was a key reason why Napoleon’s mighty army eventually was on the ‘run’.

Immuron shares were steady at 7.5 cents.

Oncosil ties up Egypt and the Nordics in distribution deals

OncoSil Medical’s (ASX:OSL) latest distribution deal covers the searing expanses of Egypt and the icy Nordic climes – both of which are important markets for its targeted radiation therapy for pancreatic cancer.

Covering Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland, the Nordic compact is with Cardirad, “renowned for its strong expertise and extensive network in the fields of oncology and nuclear medicine”.

Another nuclear medicine specialist, Femto Trade will handle the Egyptian end.

The eponymous Oncosil device delivers a targeted radiation treatment for local unresectable (inoperable) pancreatic cancer and so far has been used on more than 200 patients.

The tumor is irradiated directly via the injection of micro particles with a radioactive isotope, carried under endoscopic ultrasound guidance.

While the procedure takes merely half an hour, the localised radiation is emitted for three months.

The company won European approval in 2000 and overall the device can be sold in more than 30 countries.

Commercial progress has been slower than expected for various reasons, including Europe’s convoluted regulation.

The company is also working on an abbreviated method of entry into the US market.

Oncosil shares were steady at 0.8 cents.

Germans say ‘ja’ to Radiopharm’s imaging tool

Before you can treat pancreatic cancer you need to find it in the first place and on that note Radiopharm Theranostics (ASX:RAD) reports encouraging results from a German imaging trial.

Carried out at a Dresden university across 44 patients, the study showed both the primary tumour and mestastases were “well visualised” with Radiopharm’s gallium isotope agent RAD-301.

The results were publishd in the peer-reviewed Frontiers in Nuclear Medicine.

Radiopharm is carrying out its own phase I imaging trial for advanced panceratic cancers, at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Radiopharm has some way to go before it’s the ‘next Telix’ (Telix Pharmaceuticals (ASX:TLX) but its shares bounded 12% this morning to 2.8 cents.