FDA approves Imagent

Alliance Pharmaceutical will kick off its marketing campaign for ultrasound contrast agent Imagent June 9 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Echocardiography in Orlando. The commercial release follows recent FDA approval of the agent to opacify the left ventricle in patients with suboptimal echocardiograms. Imagent, formerly known as Imavist, will be marketed by Alliance in partnership with Cardinal Health and inChord Communications. Imagent is manufactured from synthetic materials and packaged as a dry powder in a ready-to-use kit stored at room temperature. The powder is reconstituted with water to form an osmotically stabilized suspension of microscopic spheres, or microspheres, containing a perfluorochemical (perflexane) vapor and physiologic gases. Imagent is then injected intravenously into a patient undergoing a cardiac ultrasound exam.