Cianna Medical will be the new name for the company that will manufacture and market the recently introduced SAVI™ breast-brachytherapy device.
In a separate announcement today, Hologic, Inc., a leading developer of diagnostic and medical imaging systems, said the company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire BioLucent and its MammoPad breast cushion business. Cianna will be created as a spin-off from BioLucent, Inc. concurrent with the close of this transaction.
The team that developed and commercialized SAVI will remain with Cianna as the company expands. Steve Gex, BioLucent’s CEO, will continue as the CEO of Cianna.
“We created Cianna as a separate company because we believe a small company is the best environment to nurture innovation, address customer needs and develop SAVI’s full potential. We believe the SAVI brachytherapy applicator is a superior device for delivering precisely targeted radiation to the breast after lumpectomy,” Gex said.
SAVI offers women who have had lumpectomy surgery a more convenient, five-day course of treatment, instead of the standard six weeks of treatment with external radiation.
The multi-catheter, expandable SAVI device treats tissue surrounding the lumpectomy cavity from the inside out.
Clinically, this unique approach may make the benefits of partial breast irradiation available to a larger group of women. It also gives more treatment planning flexibility to the radiation oncologist and physicist, and provides physicians with the ability to control and contour the radiation dose.
"We've seen strong interest from surgeons and radiation oncologists who have recognized that SAVI represents a potentially significant advance in post-surgical breast radiotherapy," Gex said.
SAVI is offered to women at several leading breast cancer treatment centers, including Arizona Oncology Services and the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego.
Prior to the successful development and pending sale of BioLucent and the MammoPad business to Hologic, Gex was President and CEO of Biopsys Medical, makers of the Mammotome breast biopsy device, which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 1997. He also serves on the board of directors for several healthcare companies.
