As any needle-phobic patient can tell you, a big part of medicine involves getting past the skin barrier. It’s an issue for getting medicine in, or getting blood out, and it’s more than a painful irritation. For people who have special needs, such as continuous glucose monitoring, needles can represent a major quality of life issue, a serious need now being addressed by a new technology offered through Echo Therapeutics, Inc.
Echo Therapeutics is a Pennsylvania based medical device company, with a deep expertise in advanced skin permeation technology. The company’s primary technology is its Prelude® SkinPrep System, a platform for enhanced and painless skin permeation, targeting two widespread uses:
• Needle-Free Drug Delivery, with the delivery of lidocaine, a common local anesthetic and antiarrhythmic drug, as the initial application
• Analyte Extraction, using the Symphony® tCGM System for needle-free, continuous glucose monitoring in hospital patients as the first application
Echo has enjoyed significant share-price growth, rising from $0.212 in late 2008 to nearly exceed $5.00 earlier this year, with additional applications for painless needle-free drug delivery already being planned.
One of Echo’s key directors, and a past president of the company, is Shawn Singh, currently the CEO of VistaGen Therapeutics (OTCBB: VSTA), a growing biotechnology company focused on using proprietary stem cell technologies for drug rescue. Mr. Singh, an honors graduate of U.C. Berkeley with a J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law, has been working with life science companies for nearly 20 years. He has also served as CEO and director of Hemodynamics Therapeutics, a majority owned affiliate of Cato BioVentures.
For additional information on Echo Therapeutics, visit www.EchoTx.com
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