Mauna Kea Technologies, inventor of Cellvizio, the multi-disciplinary confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) platform, announced that it has entered into a global commercialization partnership with Cook Medical for urology applications of its unique Cellvizio platform.
Cook Medical, a privately-held company with more than 11,000 employees and headquarters in Bloomington, Indiana, is among the world’s best-known and most respected names in medical devices and supplies and a world leader in urology applications.
"We’re extremely pleased to partner with a global market leader such as Cook Medical to address the urology market with our unique confocal laser endomicroscopy technology," said Sacha Loiseau, founder and CEO of Mauna Kea Technologies.
"This first global commercial partnership is a major milestone of our new strategy to commercialize our innovative technology through private labeling or integration of our Cellvizio platform with established leaders in a range of indications."
Under the terms of the agreement, Cook Medical will launch a private-labeled version of the Cellvizio platform for urologic applications in the first half of 2016. With their international expertise in sales, marketing and medical education and their comprehensive complementary product portfolio in urology, Cook has the potential to rapidly maximize the commercial opportunities for Cellvizio.
Urologic applications of confocal laser endomicroscopy with Cellvizio may include detection and surveillance for cancer recurrence among the 500,000+ people living with bladder cancer in the United-States, and the characterization of upper urinary tract urothelial cancer (UTUC).
"While we focus resources on the execution of our commercialization partnership with Cook Medical, we are continuing to work to develop additional indications for Cellvizio that will position us to explore many new partnership opportunities in the coming year and beyond," concluded Mr. Loiseau.