Dr. Arun Menawat reports

PROFOUND MEDICAL RECEIVES U.S. FDA 510(K) CLEARANCE FOR TULSA-PRO(TM) THERMAL BOOST

Profound Medical Corp. has received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the company's Thermal Boost module for use in conjunction with TULSA-PRO.

TULSA-PRO enables surgeons to ablate whole- or partial-gland prostate tissue in patients with low-, intermediate- or high-risk prostate cancer; with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH); as well as those prostate cancer patients on active surveillance seeking treatment of their cancer and relief from their symptoms of BPH. Profound's data indicate that, in a commercial setting, approximately 60 per cent of the patients being treated with TULSA require whole gland ablation, whereas the remaining 40 per cent receive partial gland ablation. In addition, TULSA surgeons are treating prostates of various shapes and sizes, ranging from prostate volumes of less than 20 cubic centimetres to greater than 250 cubic centimetres, confirming TULSA-PRO as one of the most versatile technologies currently available for the treatment of prostate disease.

Recognizing that the TULSA patient population consists of a wide variety of prostate disease states, as well as prostate shapes and sizes, the company is developing a novel set of software modules that will work in conjunction with TULSA-PRO to further enable treating such variety with further customizability, ease of use and higher confidence in clinical outcomes. Profound plans to market these new clinically relevant modules under the name brand TULSA AI.

Thermal Boost, Profound's first FDA-cleared TULSA AI module, enables surgeons to temporarily increase the ablation target temperature in prostate regions where advanced-stage cancer might reside, further increasing their confidence that aggressive cancer cells have been ablated. The Thermal Boost module is already CE marked and is being used in up to 50 per cent of the TULSA patients being treated in Europe. Based on a recent TULSA-PRO survey, European surgeons indicated that Thermal Boost resulted in improved treatment outcomes in 88 per cent of their prostate cancer cases.

"The Thermal Boost feature is a significant development of the TULSA technology," said Dr. Mikael Anttinen, urologic oncologist at Turku University Hospital in Finland. "It opens an important degree of freedom for the surgeon, allowing for controlled increased thermal dose to be delivered to selected regions of the treatment plan. Achieving complete thermal coverage is critical to successful prostate disease treatment, so being able to customize ablation temperature in real time has improved treatment efficacy as well as workflow efficiency. The Thermal Boost feature has allowed us to expand our confidence in patient selection, for example to include patients with MRI-visible lesions bulging the prostate capsule, and other higher-risk features."

Dr. Arun Menawat, PhD, Profound's chief executive officer and chairman, commented: "We believe that the TULSA technology can be used to treat up to 600,000 patients per year in the United States, and based on the utilization data from Europe, Thermal Boost may have an application in the majority of late-stage disease cases. In addition, the feedback from European surgeons using the module indicates that Thermal Boost could significantly increase both the ease and speed of treatment in a certain subset of the patient population."

Profound is continuing to develop additional TULSA AI modules, including one that will enable the creation of an artificial intelligence-driven automated treatment plan, which will be based on a database of successful physician-created treatment designs. The company is working with the FDA on a pathway to achieve the agency's clearance for this module.

About Profound Medical Corp.

Profound is a commercial-stage medical device company that develops and markets customizable, incision-free therapies for the ablation of diseased tissue.

Profound is commercializing TULSA-PRO, a technology that combines real-time MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), robotically driven transurethral ultrasound and closed-loop temperature feedback control. TULSA-PRO is designed to provide customizable and predictable radiation-free ablation of a surgeon-defined prostate volume while actively protecting the urethra and rectum to help preserve the patient's natural functional abilities. TULSA-PRO has the potential to be a flexible technology in customizable prostate ablation, including intermediate-stage cancer, localized radio-recurrent cancer, retention and hematuria palliation in locally advanced prostate cancer, and the transition zone in large-volume benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). TULSA-PRO is CE marked, Health Canada approved, and 510(k) cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

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