Sirtex brings liver cancer therapy to Latin America

Stewart Pearson, US Marketing Director for Sirtex, said, ?There is certainly an unmet need for treatments such as this.?

Woburn developer of liver cancer therapy Sirtex Medical Ltd. (ASX:SRX), said it has treated its first patients in Latin America.

Sirtex said its Selective Internal Radiation Therapy (SIRT) was used at the Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, the first center to offer the treatment in Latin America.

Sirtex, which recently received approval for its SIR-Spheres microspheres from the National Administration of Drugs, Food and Medical Technology in Argentina, provides the treatment to patients through targeted internal irradiation therapy directly to the tumor, according to the company.

The radioactive polymer spheres, which are one-third the diameter of a strand of human hair, deliver 40 times more radiation to a tumor than conventional radiation therapy, according to Sirtex. The company said its launch in Latin America will address the need of the 2,000 Argentinians who will be diagnosed with liver cancer each year, and the more than 5,000 people with colorectal cancer who will see their cancer spread to their liver.

?There is certainly an unmet need for treatments such as this,? Sirtex US Marketing Director Stewart Pearson told Mass High Tech. ?We know the options are limited for patients with cancer in their liver that can not be cut out. This provides hope and an extention to life expectancy.?

After approval in Argentina, Sirtex spent three months to get the treatment center ready.? As part of making the treatment available to patients, healthcare professionals are supervised for the first three treatments that they do.
?It is not as simple as giving an injection,? Pearson said. ?It?s radioactive material being infused in a specific part of the body, in this case the liver.?

The plan now is to expand the treatment in other hospitals in Buenos Aires in the next few months, and to make it available at additional centers in other countries in Latin America in the next 18 months. Pearson said it will take longer to roll out the treatment in other countries because each country has its own regulatory system. ?It?s not as simple as taking best practices in Argentina and applying it to each country in Latin America.?

Sirtex recently expanded its U.S. operations with additional employees in sales, marketing and functional support and said it will add employees in its Massachusetts office and other locations across the country in order to meet demand for SIR- Spheres microspheres, which are produced for the U.S. market at its manufacturing facilities in Wilmington. Revenues from dose sales grew by 18 percent to $83 million, according to the company?s 2012 annual report.

Source: http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2012/10/15/daily9-Sirtex-brings-liver-cancer-therapy-to-Latin-America.html

playstation all stars battle royale kim zolciak kim zolciak travis pastrana quinton coples a.j. jenkins riley reiff