Alliance anticipates agent launch

Alliance Pharmaceutical of San Diego hopes to have its first imagingagent approved for the U.S. market by fall, according to Hal W.De Long, executive vice president of business development andmarketing. Imagent-GI is an oral gastrointestinal agent for magneticresonance imaging that darkens the bowels and allows clearer imagingof abdominal organs.

Imagent-GI is Alliance's first application of its patented,perfluorocarbon contrast products based on a synthetic compoundcalled perfluorooctylbromide (PFOB). Other PFOB imaging productsinclude Imagent-BP, a blood-pool computed tomography and ultrasoundagent targeting metastatic liver cancer, and Imagent-LN, a lymphnode tumor agent for CT imaging (SCAN 2/28/90).

Alliance submitted an investigational new drug (IND) applicationin December for Imagent-BP, but has run into unexpected delaysat the Food and Drug Administration. The delays have been duein part to a high turnover of reviewers, De Long said.

"We are on our third (FDA) toxicologist," he noted."Every time there is a turnover (in staff), someone elsehas to brought up (to speed) on the file."

Alliance has licensed international rights to its PFOB imagingagents to Boehringer Ingelheim, a West German pharmaceutical company,and is seeking a distributor to handle U.S. sales, he said.

PFOB also has cardiovascular therapeutic applications relatedto it oxygen-carrying characteristics. Alliance is investigatinglicensing opportunities on the therapeutic side, De Long said.

The company hired Jack DeFranco as vice president of marketingin January. He will work with Imagent product managers to assistthe U.S. distributor.

"We made a decision not to do direct marketing, and arenow considering various distributor candidates," De Longsaid.

BRIEFLY NOTED:

• Genesys, a picture archiving and communications systemintegrator and IBM business partner (SCAN 1/17/90), has signedon Bio-Medical Imaging of Winston-Salem, NC, as a distributorin North and South Carolina.

Genesys of Maitland, FL, incorporates the IBM RS/6000 workstation(see story, page one) into its PACS and teleradiology equipment.Bio-Medical Imaging has formed a division to market the Genesysline under the brand name Provue.

Bio-Medical Imaging is an established regional medical imagingdistributor with a solid customer base, said Michael R. Kerouac,Genesys president. The distributor handles x-ray, mammographyand ultrasound equipment and will work with IBM to sell and servicethe PACS line, he said.