| 52wk Range: | 0.04 - 0.16 |
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| Volume: | 57,375 |
| Avg Vol (3m): | 32,809 |
| Market Cap: | 4.29M |
| Acology Inc (ACOL) | |
Zenosense, Inc. (ZENO)
-Other OTC
0.02(4.88%) 12:52PM EST| Day's Range: | 0.40 - 0.44 |
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| 52wk Range: | 0.25 - 0.60 |
| Volume: | 334,048 |
| Avg Vol (3m): | 179,217 |
| Market Cap: | 21.04M |
Headlines
- These Medical Stocks Are Reaching A Fever Pitch Following Midterm ElectionsAccesswire(Wed, Nov 12)
- ZENOSENSE, INC. Files SEC form 10-Q, Quarterly ReportEDGAR Online(Mon, Nov 10)
- Zenosense, Inc. Reports Manufacturing of Pre-Commercial Lung Cancer Detection DeviceMarketwired(Tue, Nov 4)
- Zenosense, Inc.; MRSA/SA Prototype Achieves over 95% Sensibility in Cultured HeadspaceAccesswire(Mon, Oct 27)
- Zenosense, Inc.; Protocol Design -- Lung Cancer Detection TestsMarketwired(Tue, Oct 21)
- Zenosense, Inc. Update -- MRSA and Lung Cancer Device DevelopmentMarketwired(Wed, Sep 17)
- ZENOSENSE, INC. FinancialsEDGAR Online Financials(Tue, Aug 26)
- ZENOSENSE, INC. Files SEC form 10-Q, Quarterly ReportEDGAR Online(Tue, Aug 19)
- ZENOSENSE, INC. Files SEC form 8-K, Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement, Unregistered Sale of Equity SecuritieEDGAR Online(Thu, Jul 31)
- Zenosense, Inc. Begins Development of Lung Cancer Detection DeviceMarketwired(Tue, Jul 29)
- ZENOSENSE, INC. Files SEC form 8-K, Entry into a Material Definitive AgreementEDGAR Online(Thu, Jul 24)
- Zenosense, Inc. Highlights Recent Media Coverage of MRSAMarketwired(Tue, May 27)
- Zenosense, Inc. Provides Development UpdateMarketwired(Wed, May 21)
- ZENOSENSE, INC. Files SEC form 10-Q, Quarterly ReportEDGAR Online(Tue, May 20)
- Zenosense, Inc. Extends License to Include Cancer ApplicationsMarketwired(Thu, May 8)
It's been all over the TV. Masked health workers screening airplane passengers for elevated body temperatures that can signal Ebola infection.
They're screening with a simple "temperature gun." It's not fool-proof by a long shot. But it's all that's currently available. Even this elementary screening could potentially save millions of lives by early detection and preventing an Ebola-infected traveler triggering a world-wide pandemic.
Hopefully, Ebola will be contained. And while each of its victims is a tragic loss, the highly-publicized Ebola outbreak has drawn the world's attention to the life-or-death importance of early and reliable detection of all deadly diseases.
Ebola may be in the spotlight for now, but it pales in comparison to the persistent number of deaths caused every year by cancer, MRSA and other infectious diseases. And other epidemics and pandemics are bound to occur. Remember, the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 is estimated to have killed as many as 100 million people. Early detection would have helped contain its spread.
The Black Death of the Middle Ages, a bacterial infection carried by Oriental rat fleas living on black rats, is estimated to have taken the lives of 75 to 200 million people, 30% to 60% of Europe's population at the time. Of course there were no screening devices available back then. Had there been, millions of lives may have been saved by isolating the infected at an early stage.
So, while the Ebola outbreak is indeed terrible, it may serve to focus the world's attention on
the critical need to develop more-effective, instant-response detection devices for all of the world's killer diseases.
There's no doubt about it; the ready availability of an inexpensive, hand-held, instant-detection device for Ebola would have saved thousands of lives, and it would be in universal demand.
In the not too distant future, there is real hope one will be available!
Zenosense, Inc. is a high-tech medical device development company based in Valencia, Spain.
Its mission is to develop market and sell low-cost, instant-answer detection devices, first for deadly MRSA and Lung Cancer, and perhaps, down the road, for other infectious and life threating diseases, including Ebola.
There is currently no cost effective system that. . .
a) acts like a "Smoke Alarm" for MRSA, detecting infection early, both in the patient or in the rooms of a healthcare building . . .
b) acts as a simple, inexpensive and non-invasive test for the detection of Lung Cancer
But, Zenosense is developing two novel detection devices that use high-tech chips to detect disease signature molecules in the exhaled breath of a suspect patient.
One device is designed to detect the Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus "Super-Bug" (MRSA); and a second device screens for Lung Cancer.
Both operate on a common "Electronic Nose" technology platform that analyzes Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) present in the exhaled breath of infected patients, scanning for certain biomarkers which can indicate the presence of deadly MRSA or lung cancer.
The Company is capitalizing on an enormous latent dem
and for a cost-effective MRSA and Lung Cancer detectors. Using licensed-in technology, it plans to produce devices for sale to healthcare providers for use in clinical settings. This unmet need is driven by the catastrophic costs and mortality rates associated with the late detection of both MRSA and Lung Cancer. It represents a new market segment potentially worth billions.
More about how exactly these "Electronic Noses" work in a moment. Firstly, let's consider the need and market for these devices - and what it means in the way of profits for the technology company that is developing them.
Think about it. . .
Have you ever had the feeling that something was not quite right, but put off going to a doctor because you didn't want to undergo a time consuming, expensive battery of blood tests, scans or x-rays?
Well. . .what if getting initially screened for an infectious disease or even lung cancer were as simple, quick and easy as blowing into a tube? And what if you'd discover in a matter of seconds if you were likely okay or requiring the immediate treatment that may save your life? Managed care being what it is today, you had better believe that every doctor, clinic and hospital would be required to have these early detection devices readily and abundantly on hand.
Inc. (ZENO) is already well into the development of early-detection dev
ices for MRSA and Lung Cancer, two of the most common causes of death in America.
MRSA is a killer bacterium responsible for difficult-to-treat deadly infections.
MRSA is any strain of Staphylococcus aureus ("SA") that has developed a resistance to antibiotics, including the penicillins such as Methicillin, Dicloxacillin, Nafcillin, Oxacillin, and also the Cephalosporins group.
MRSA has recently been estimated to be responsible for 11,000 deaths and 80,000 invasive infections per year in the United States alone.
Patients with MRSA can be twice as likely to die as patients with non-resistant Staph infections that can be treated. The annual costs of treating hospitalized MRSA patients are between $3.2 billion and $4.2 billion in the United States alone (according to an Issue Brief released by the Pew Charitable Trust on April 3, 2012).
The high financial toll on private and public health care systems by MRSA is clearly a critical issue for healthcare providers and authorities.
A considerable and expensive effort is directed at early identification of infected patients, However lab tests from cultured samples typically involve extensive incubation times of 24 hours or more and a 2-3 day result turnaround. Other tests are also available with shorter (just hours) turnaround times but these are more expensive.
Deadly infections like MRSA, acquired in healthcare settings (known as HAI's) affect hundreds of millions of patients worldwide, leading to significant mortality and financial losses for health systems. In developed countries 7 of every 100 hospitalized patients will acquire at least one HAI. In developing countries it's 10 in every 100.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), part of the US Department of Health and Human Sciences, estimate that one in 20 patients treated in U.S. hospitals develop an HAI. Approximately 2 million HAIs are associated with nearly 100,000 deaths each year and are directly responsible for at least 23,000 deaths per year in the United States alone.
The CDC takes the view that advanced molecular detection technologies, which can iden
tify threats much faster than current practice, are not being used as widely as necessary in the United States: Developing better diagnostic tools to rapidly and accurately find sources of contamination will improve antibiotic use. Zenosense's MRSA detection device is designed to meet that explicit need.
Recent studies suggest that early detection could result in a 70 per cent reduction in certain HAIs .
A recent report released by CDC estimates early-detection could save $25.0 billion to $31.5 billion in medical cost just in the United States alone. MRSA continues to account for a significant proportion of HAIs and is regarded as one of the most important causes of antimicrobial-resistant HAIs worldwide.
What's urgently needed is a life-saving, low-cost early-detection device for MRSA. Zenosense is in the business of providing it.
Lung cancer - another common killer
In the U.S. alone there are an estimated 226,150 new cases of lung cancer every year, resulting in some 164,770 deaths. The primary reason lung cancer is so deadly is that only 30% of diagnoses are made in the early stages of the disease. Stage 1 has a 70% cure rate, while patients with a late stage diagnosis have a much reduced, 25% chance of survival.
Consequently there is an urgent need to detect lung cancer at an early stage. In 2002 the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) was launched, using Computed Tomography (CT) for rapid screening at low dose. It proved to be costly, but effective, albeit carrying concerns about the side effects of the scans.
Zenosense is developing a safe, non-invasive diagnostic breath test for the detection of lung cancer with effectiveness at least comparable to CT screening - but without the health risks and high costs.
The Company believes there will be an enormous demand for such a mass screening device to
be used in conjunction with other testing, if required. And the Company's ultimate aim is to deliver a device which can perform a definitive test at very high levels of accuracy which again is safe, fast, non-invasive and available at a substantially lower cost compared to existing testing methods.
These Electronic Sniffers Could Save Your Life.
Electronically "Sniffing" to detect disease is based on proven natural processes. You see it in highly trained dogs that are able to detect prostate cancer with 98% accuracy, simply by sniffing urine samples.
While humans have roughly five million olfactory cells in their noses, dogs have about 200 million. This natural, learned detection by multiple sensors is analogous to the Zenosense technology platform. This, by clever electronic processing, effectively utilizes an infinite number of sensors and software that "learns" to recognize the relevant VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) related to specific diseases.
Development work is being carried out by a team of experts in nanotechnology, sensors, high-level mathematics, molecular biology and biochemistry. Collaborations and partnerships are also in place with hospitals, universities and a private laboratory in the fields of sensors, polymer electrochemistry, microbiology, infectious disease, pneumology, chromatography and microorganism identification.
The cost of these life-saving devices will be kept low through the utilization of standard components, but will be centered on the patent-pending Sgenia chip (under license to Zenosense). Its pre-programed software enables a standard sensor to scan for a disease's signature compounds.
A patient's breath is electronically processed by patent-pending Sgenia hardware. The algorithmic software is protected as an Industrial Secret by FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) "lock and key" encryption on Sgenia's chip.
A single Sgenia chip Is able to duplicate a screening process that previously required 8 to 32 sensors with supporting processors, circuit boards and power supply, each sensor pre-set to
a detect a certain part of the VOC spectrum associated with a specific disease.
This enables a huge cost saving over an array of individual sensors and allows the potential for mass scale production at an anticipated cost per device at an attractive price level that will encourage widespread adoption.
The MRSA Detection Device
Development of the MRSA detection device has been underway since December 2013. It is designed as single low cost sensors that sample the air and continuously monitor for the airborne VOC signature emitted by MRSA and treatable Staph (SA). The MRSA/SA VOC signature is only emitted when the bacteria has infected and expressed itself as a disease in the patient. It can be detected prior to the patient being obviously symptomatic, enabling an earlier intervention.
The device is intended to be produced in two forms:
1) A low cost wearable / bed positioned device, powered by a rechargeable battery to be positioned on the person; patients and medical staff. In the event of any infection, the MRSA device will detect the VOCs produced by the infected person and express an audio/visual alarm; and
2) an adapted, fixed device positioned in the room, mains powered, with culture-amplification of any MRSA/SA presence, to monitor the room volume. This would be network monitored.
The Sgenia detection technology is very sensitive. If the VOC signature of the genetically different MRSA can be separated from the signature of SA, there is a prospect that such a discriminatory device can be developed.
The Lung Cancer Detection Device
Development is well underway of a device into which a patient can blow during a routine health check or when displaying symptoms indicative of lung cancer.
Similar to the MRSA device, it uses a single low-cost sensor to detect specific VOCs emitted only in the breath of a person affected with lung cancer. Related technology and detection principles used in the MRSA device (under development since December 2013) will be applied. The initial aim is to develop a device which can be used as a complimentary test to existing tests such as Tomography scans, and to match or exceed the accuracy of these scans.
The aim is for the device to be low cost and non-invasive and therefore affordable in the basic primary care setting such as a family physician.
Such a device would be in universal demand and provide the solution for mass screening for lung cancer in a safe and cost effective manner, overcoming some of the shortfalls of other forms of mass screening. The ultimate goal is to develop a device which can provide a very high level of accuracy and act as a definitive, non-invasive and low cost test.
As the co-developer of these two novel, cost-effective detection devices, Zenosense is likely to be highly attractive to prospective distribution partners and end users. Each type of device has the potential to service a multi $billion market to address the critical and often lethal issues posed by these two conditions.
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