NEWS RELEASE DEC 14
M-I VASCULAR INNOVATIONS INC. UPDATE
For Immediate Release December 14, 2000
Olympic Resources Ltd. (Olympic) provides the following update of its investment in M-I Vascular Innovations Inc. This investment was made in March 2000 as part of its corporate diversification initiative. Olympic holds 600,000 shares and a total of 1.2 million warrants in MI Vascular and has a strategic relationship with the Company through an investment and advisory agreement.
MI Vascular Innovations Inc. (the “Company”), a Delaware corporation, was formed in early 1999 for the primary purpose of developing coronary devices for the cardiovascular industry, primarily focused on stents which are rapidly replacing bypass surgery in the treatment of arterial blockage. Stents are tubular compressible blood vessel scaffolding devices which are mounted on a balloon catheter and inserted by medical specialists through the avenue of the circulatory system to the location of a blockage in the circulatory system. The stent is pierced into the blockage and expanded to open the blockage and permit normal blood flow. Technical challenges which are faced by stent companies include: the design and product quality of the stent which must be such as to be readily compressible onto the balloon catheter, the stent must adhere adequately to the catheter so that it is not lost in the delivery process, it must expand competently to open the vessel, after expansion the stent must have adequate structural strength to maintain expansion as a scaffolding for the vessel walls, and the stent must sustain various stresses for years, resist migration, and minimize reforming of a blockage (restenosis).
Employing the Company’s research and development experience, the developed skills of its engineers and employing the advice of leading medical consultants and world renowned physicians (including members of its board) the Company proceeded to develop a stent which would be at the forefront of the industry. Over US$3 million has been invested by the Company in research, development, and infrastructure to produce a laser-cut stent (the “MIVI Stent”) which has now advanced to human clinical trials.
The Company has filed patent applications internationally (including under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, “PCT”) and the applications are proceeding satisfactorily with minimal comment. The Company has received positive preliminary assessments from both the US and PCT offices, which indicates no major conflicts with other existing patent claims. The Company was advised on November 16, 2000 by its patent lawyers that the Company has had its Taiwanese patent application allowed.
In the second and third quarter of 2000 the MIVI Stent achieved successful development and entered animal trials at the world renowned Mayo Clinic. The result of these trials was the Mayo Clinic’s report that the MIVI Stent has performed to exemplary standards. This is particularly significant to the Company because the Mayo Clinic is the preferred facility for cardiovascular device manufacturers.
During November 2000 the Company initiated clinical trials at Incor – Institute do Coracao in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Incor is the largest heart institute (second largest in the world) and most prestigious in South America. The Company has entered into a letter of intent to joint venture potential new technologies with Incor. The Company is producing 500 fully packaged MIVI Stents and catheter packages at its manufacturing facilities in Vancouver for delivery to Incor for the clinical trials.
Further clinical trials will commence in early 2001 in various selected locations. Presently under consideration are a number of sites in France, India and Canada. These clinical trials are expected to qualify the MIVI Stent for CE Mark Certification. CE Mark Certification is the registration procedure under the European Union rules which permit sale of the Company’s product in Europe. This certification will also permit sales in most other countries in the world, excepting only North America and Japan. The Company anticipates completing all clinical trials by August 2001 and obtaining CE Mark Certification by November 2001.
To fulfill the Company’s certification requirements as a manufacturer and to achieve the most rapid commercialization of the MIVI Stent possible the Company has already established a high volume manufacturing, testing, and packaging capability (capacity for 60,000 stents per annum) for the MIVI Stent in its Vancouver facilities in anticipation of international sales in the first quarter of 2002. The installed manufacturing machinery (together with the clean room facilities, testing facilities and other facilities – all meeting ISO 9000 standards) is highly flexible and can readily be re-programmed and re-tooled for enhanced product lines and new developments.
The Company has begun to establish a distribution network for its products, both present and future, primarily through joint venture agreements and strategic partnerships. The Company is also in discussions and investigations for the establishment of distribution and manufacture in India, a country with a middle class four times the size of the entire population of Canada. As previously stated, the responses are very positive and the Company expects that the first sales will be initiated from the institutes at which clinical trials are and will be implemented.
To ensure that the Company stays at the forefront of the medical device field the Company is building upon its expertise and is moving into the drug delivery and other therapy fields. Employing first its MIVI Stent as a delivery vehicle, the Company is researching polymer and other coating systems for drug delivery for specific indicators and circulatory problems.
The Company has received extraordinary support and recognition from the financial, scientific and medical communities. In less than 2 years, MI Vascular has proven its ability to design outstanding stents, has received very positive reports on its products from world-renowned medical clinics and is creating strategic alliances which will provide the Company worldwide distribution capabilities and medical development capabilities which could establish the Company as a leader in the medical products field.
Olympic Resources Ltd. is primarily a natural resource company with oil and gas holdings in California where natural gas prices have recently exploded upwards. During the past twelve months Olympic has participated in 10 gas wells, four of which have been put into production. Cash flow has grown from nil in the first six months of the Company’s fiscal year to $360,000 for the quarter ended November 30, 2000. Olympic continues to maintain a corporate treasury in excess of $2,000,000 resulting from successful ventures in oil and gas. Earlier this year, Olympic determined to employ its corporate capabilities and resources to examine diversification into other business opportunities and selected the Biotech industry as a field of great interest. |
