U.S. Food and Drug Administration Clears Way for Multi-Center Clinical Trial of IDEV Technologies' SUPERA Periph...( Novel Stent Platform Designe...),Health

Novel Stent Platform Designed for Radial Strength, Flexibility

HOUSTON, March 18 /PRNewswire/ -- IDEV Technologies Incorporated, (IDEV) an emerging leader in the development and marketing of minimally invasive technologies, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved an investigational device exemption (IDE) for a multi-center clinical trial of its SUPERA stent, a novel stent platform designed for the treatment of peripheral artery disease (PAD) in the superficial femoral artery (SFA). PAD affects more than 8 million people in the U.S. alone and, by the age of 65, 12-20 percent of the population will develop PAD, according to the American Heart Association.

The SUPERB trial (Comparison of the SUPERA PERipheral System to a Performance Goal Derived from Balloon Angioplasty Clinical Trials in the Superficial Femoral Artery), a prospective, single-arm trial of 258 subjects at up to 40 U.S. sites, will be led by national co-principal investigators Kenneth Rosenfield, M.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA and Lawrence Garcia, M.D., of Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, Boston, MA.

"The approval of this IDE marks a significant step forward toward understanding the potential benefits of the unique properties of the SUPERA stent," Dr. Rosenfeld said. "Members of the physician community have already shown a high level of interest in this novel stent platform and IDEV's commitment to generating prospective clinical data will help us demonstrate the promise of this device."

The objective of the trial is to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of the SUPERA Interwoven Self-Expanding Nitinol Stent in treating subjects with obstructive SFA disease. SUPERA has demonstrated superior properties in engineering tests compared to nitinol laser cut slotted tube stents resulting in greater than four times the radial s
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