CTI picks up ex-Trex VP

John M. Brenna joined the ranks of former Trex executives to land with other imaging companies when Computerized Thermal Imaging (CTI) announced his appointment as an executive vice president.

Hologic purchased Trex from Thermo Electron in September for $55 million (SCAN, 9/27/00). Absorption of the Trex technology gave Hologic an entrée to the breast imaging sector. Brenna was president and chief operating officer of the Lorad division of Trex, which specializes in breast imaging and stereotactic biopsy systems.

CTI has been developing a breast cancer imaging system designed to recognize and differentiate temperature patterns of malignant and benign breast tumors without radiation. The CTI system consists of a patient table and heat-sensitive camera, and can be used in conjunction with traditional x-ray mammography.

The company sold 10 of its breast-imaging systems in July to a Mexico City-based company that it partly owns. The new device approval process is less stringent in Mexico than in the U.S. (SCAN, 7/5/00). The technology has been slowly moving through the FDA's premarket approval process over the past year.