BEDFORD, MA (March 25, 2010):  VisEn Medical Inc., a leader in fluorescence imaging from research through medicine, announced today the commercial launch of its new GastroSense^TM 750 fluorescence agent for imaging gastric motility and related drug effects in vivo. 

Gastric motility, or the rate of nutrient transport through the gastrointestinal tract, is an established measure of overall gastric health, specific gastric disorders, and general physiologic health related to toxicity profiles of systemic drugs.  VisEn's new GastroSense 750 fluorescence imaging agent is designed to enable real time quantitative measurements of gastric motility in animal models, thereby enabling rapid and effective assessment of a wide variety of related diseases and drug effects in preclinical research and drug development. 

"The new GastroSense^TM 750 agent represents another robust biologic imaging addition to VisEn's leading suite of agents and fluorescence tomographic (FMT) systems," said Kirtland Poss, President and CEO of VisEn. "These new fluorescence imaging approaches are providing dramatically improved solutions for measuring key aspects of disease progression and drug response in vivo, and we are looking forward to expanding these areas further with our customers and partners."

VisEn's proprietary fluorescence imaging agents and labels are designed to provide the industry's broadest and most robust range of biologically-specific imaging readouts.  VisEn offers over 30 different fluorescence molecular agents for imaging key disease-associated biologic targets, processes and pathways.  VisEn agent brands include ProSense^®, IntegriSense^TM, AngioSense^TM, OsteoSense^®, MMPSense^TM, Annexin-Vivo^TM, the FAST^TM line of imaging agents including Cat K FAST^TM and Cat B FAST^TM, and now GastroSense^TM.  VisEn also offers specialized lines of agent labeling platforms in the red wavelength spectrum, including its proprietary VivoTag^® red fluorescence labeling dyes and its NanoSpark^® nanoparticles, for customized fluorescence agent labeling.  They are all designed and optimized specifically for superior biocompatibility, brightness, stability and performance in biological imaging applications including cell-based and in vivo imaging applications.

All VisEn agents and labels are designed for in vivo biomarker quantification using VisEn's Fluorescence Molecular Tomography (FMT^TM) imaging systems, or for general use along with other non-quantitative fluorescence in vivo imaging systems.  VisEn agents are also designed to enable complementary in vitro biomarker readouts in cells and tissues using standard fluorescence microscopy and cellular-based imaging systems.  With a focus on translational research and results, all of VisEn's technologies are designed to generate translational data linking preclinical research into clinical medicine.