Welcome
Thank you for visiting!
These are exciting times for Vicor as we begin to manifest our long-term vision for the Company and reap the rewards of our journey to this point.
In 2010 we hired Christopher Vissman to serve as our national sales manager. Since joining us in mid-September, Chris has developed a 34-person team of independent sales representatives who are targeting physicians specializing in endocrinology, internal medicine, cardiology, and family medicine in 16 states across the U.S. These sales reps have worked with companies such as St. Jude Medical, Medtronic, Biotronik, Sorin Group, GE Healthcare, Hill-Rom, Stryker, CardioDynamics, Polymedco, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Intelli-Heart, eCardio, and CarboMedics. With backgrounds like this, we’re confident that our sales force is well-established among the physicians we’re targeting and will continue to have a significant impact on our revenue growth going forward.
The PD2i Analyzer™ is an easy-to-use diagnostic that measures heart rate variability and enables physicians to identify the probability of adverse medical events such as autonomic system dysfunction and cardiac mortality in at-risk patient populations, which, in turn, enables them to improve their patient care. Importantly, reimbursement currently exists for physicians to use the PD2i Analyzer™ to perform the test on patients at rest and in response to controlled exercise and paced respiration and physicians. Additionally, the PD2i Analyzer™ is very attractive from an economic perspective. Physicians who wish to purchase the PD2i Analyzer™ – which is very affordable relative to comparable diagnostics – are now able to securely payout their purchase, should they wish to do so, via a captive lease program we established with a reputable provider of equipment lease financing options. This also benefits Vicor in that it provides the Company with immediate access to the revenue generated on financed purchases to further our growth initiatives.
I am delighted to say that physician response to the PD2i Analyzer™ has been very enthusiastic.
Recently-completed clinical trials – as well as 45 published manuscripts of independent research involving the use of Vicor’s PD2i® nonlinear algorithm to measure a wide variety of human conditions and disorders — continue to demonstrate the ability of the PD2i Analyzer™ to consistently accurately risk stratify specific target populations for future pathological events.
Most recently, our scientists completed a study to test the ability of the PD2i Analyzer™ — which measures heart rate variability with a score from our patented, proprietary PD2i® nonlinear algorithm — to detect early subclinical autonomic dysfunction in young (12.9-31.5 years)asymptomatic individuals with type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM). The PD2i Analyzer™ demonstrated the ability to detect autonomic nervous system dysfunction very early in asymptomatic type 1 DM patients similar to the best discriminative power of previously published complexity measures. With a P value of 0.0006, the study results are highly statistically significant.
Importantly, the PD2i Analyzer™ was able to identify those patients with early subclinical autonomic dysfunction with the results of a resting ECG. To date, the standard of care for diagnosing these patients with a measure of heart rate variability depended on ECGs taken during controlled exercise and paced respiration. A manuscript of this study — “Nonlinear PD2i® heart rate complexity algorithm detects autonomic neuropathy in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus” – authored by James Skinner, PhD, Vicor’s Vice President and Director of Research, in collaboration with Daniel Weiss, MD, Vicor’s Chief Medical Officer, and Jerry Anchin, PhD, Vicor’s Vice President and Director of Product Development, has been accepted for publication in Clinical Neurophysiology.
In mid 2010, under a collaborative agreement with the University of Rochester and the Catalan Institute, we received final results from “Prognostic Significance of Point Correlation Dimension Algorithm (PD2i) in Chronic Heart Failure,” a test to evaluate the ability of the PD2i Analyzer to predict cardiac events in the 537 chronic heart failure patients enrolled in the MUSIC Trial; MUSIC Trial participants were followed for an average period of 44 months. The conclusion of the University of Rochester researchers who conducted the study is that the PD2i® nonlinear algorithm and software is predictive of total mortality, cardiac death, and heart failure death in patients with left ventricular ejection fraction of less than or equal to 35%. With a P value of 0.004 the study results are highly statistically significant. According to Wojciech Zareba, MD, PhD, the principal investigator at the Unveristy of Rochester, ““These results are of major importance for risk stratifying heart failure patients who are eligible for therapy with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) or cardiac resynchronization therapy with defibrillator (CRT-D). Currently, only about 30-40% of heart failure patients eligible for this therapy receive devices. Testing heart failure patients using the PD2i® should enhance risk stratification and motivate physicians to implant these devices in ICD/CRT-D eligible patients with abnormal PD2i® test results.”
An abstract summarizing these results — “Prognostic Significance of PD2i, Novel Risk Marker in Heart Failure Patients” – was recently accepted for a poster presentation by Dr. Zareba at the American College of Cardiology 60th Annual Scientific Session and i2 Summit in April.
Our long-term vision is to have the medical community accept the PD2i® nonlinear algorithm as a new vital sign. Given its ability to assess patient conditions more quickly and accurately than traditional vital signs, we anticipate continued rapid acceptance and adoption among physicians and caregivers.
The journey now culminating in the successful commercialization of our science and breakthrough technology has been made possible, in no small measure, by the continuing hard work of our scientists, physicians, and employees.
We hope you will become a part of the very bright future now manifesting for Vicor.
Sincerely,
March 22, 2011
