Market

The market for MagniXene™ and/or MagniLium™ consists of three potential customers: In the long term, hospitals and clinics would use these pulmonary imaging agents to evaluate individual patients for medical diagnosis and optimizing treatment. In the intermediate term, we expect to meet the needs of pharmaceutical companies that could use the diagnostic capabilities of MagniXene™ to evaluate the effectiveness of blockbuster therapies. In the meantime, we are receiving interest from clinical researchers in academic hospitals hoping to validate new methods of using these novel imaging agents to diagnose, monitor, and treat disease.

The world pharmaceutical market exceeded $490 billion in 2003, with 8% year-on-year growth. This industry accounts for 24% of the healthcare sector. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the fourth leading cause of death in the US, yet imaging strategies for diagnosis, staging and treatment of lung disease are lagging those for diseases of the other major organs. Therapies to halt or reverse disease require diagnostic measurements to demonstrate their safety and efficacy. Pharmaceutical company representatives have asserted that candidate drugs for arresting COPD are in hand, however no quantitative imaging diagnostic measurement exists for evaluating their effectiveness. Licensing of MagniXene™ technology, products, and services to pharmaceutical companies to evaluate candidate therapies for COPD represents an immediate market. Since blockbuster drugs can generate billions of dollars in sales, validating therapies represents a potentially large revenue stream for Xemed.

The market for MagniXene™ for medical diagnosis of individuals is composed of the hospitals, clinics and imaging centers that have MRI equipment in place, or are installing such equipment in the near future. All of these hospitals and clinics are considered potential users of the magnetizing apparatus. As of 1999, it was estimated that there were over 5000 MRI units in use in the United States1. 2003 analysis from Frost & Sullivan revealed that the U.S. MRI Scanners and Coils Markets had revenues which totaled $1.46 billion in 2002 and are projected to reach $1.97 billion by 2009. Note that of the 800 million medical imaging procedures performed worldwide in 2002, approximately 120 million scans were “enhanced” with medical diagnostic products, generating revenues of $4 billion2.

Based on 2003 estimates developed by IMV Medical Information Division, the demand for magnetic resonance imaging units is solid, with unit installations in the U.S. projected at 1000-plus units per year for the next five years. The number of MRI procedures is also growing, with an estimated 21.9 million procedures performed in the U.S. in 2002, an increase of 22% from 18 million in 2001. The study found that cardiac and vascular applications are growing in routine clinical settings and now account for over two-thirds of MRI installations. The fraction of these procedures that utilize injections of gadolinium-based contrast enhancement is approaching one-third.