SuperSonic Imagine Delivers 2,000th Aixplorer® to the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France, March 01, 2018 -- SuperSonic Imagine (Euronext:SSI) (FR0010526814), a company specialised in medical imaging using ultrasound, announces the installation of its 2,000^th Aixplorer at the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. This is the third Aixplorer system installed in this hospital.

Prof. Xie, Xiaoyan, director of Guangzhou’s hospital, with her team for AIxplorer Installation.

Operating in China since 2013, SuperSonic Imagine opened two legal entities and five representative offices in major cities. At the same time, SuperSonic Imagine rolled out a clinical strategy with the launch of several large scope studies on: the breast, chronic hepatitis B, the musculotendinous, the thyroid and Pulsed Wave Velocity to validate the clinical benefit of its ultrasound platforms, Aixplorer and Aixplorer Ultimate.

“We are particularly proud of having delivered our 2,000^th Aixplorer to the internationally-recognized Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou. China has become our largest market with SuperSonic Imagine experiencing a very strong growth of 29% in 2017. China represented 30% of our sales in 2017. We have expressed our strong ambition here, as this territory is anticipated to make up one fourth of the world ultrasound market by 2020”, explains Michèle Lesieur, CEO of SuperSonic Imagine.

“We are very honoured that the 2,000th Aixplorer is being installed in China. It symbolises SuperSonic Imagine's rapid growth in our country,” comments enthusiastically Robin Le, SuperSonic Imagine General Manager for China. “This growth is largely due to the clinical investment made by SuperSonic Imagine in China, which has led it to building a strong reputation for itself.” 

A previous study on breast lesions¹ was designed to determine the input of ShearWave™'s Elastography (SWE) on an Asian population whose morphology differs from the Caucasian population as it presents a greater breast tissue density. Moreover, the first-line imaging modality for breast scanning in China is ultrasound, a tool particularly well-adapted for examining dense breasts. The study recruited 2,262 patients and was headed by Professor Chang (Shanghai) and Professor Li (Guangzhou), who verified the data obtained from 22 sites, including the 3A hospitals in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Harbin, Xi'an, Chengdu and Taiyuan. The results of this study were presented at the RSNA (Radiological Society North America) conference in 2016 and have confirmed the benefits of SWE in the characterisation of breast lesions within the Chinese population.

Starting from 2015, SuperSonic Imagine launched its second clinical study to assess the performance of SWE in determining the severity of hepatic fibrosis in patients suffering from chronic Hepatitis B. Headed by Prof. Ping Liang from the People's Liberation Army Hospital (301) in Beijing, this study was conducted in 15 Chinese hospitals. All of the 402 patients suffering from hepatitis B recruited for this study received an ultrasound, notably to guide the liver biopsy, a SWE exam to measure the stiffness of the liver and a blood test.

SuperSonic Imagine has also started three other clinical studies: one on the musculotendinous with more than 1,955 cases studied in 17 centres, another clinical study for the characterisation of thyroid nodules in 31 centres and another on Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV), assessment factors for cardiac risk on 2,000 patients in 44 hospitals.

About SuperSonic Imagine

Founded in 2005 and based in Aix-en-Provence (France), Supersonic Imagine is a company that specialises in medical imaging. The company designs, develops and markets a revolutionary ultrasound platform, Aixplorer®, which uses the UltraFast™ technology that can acquire images around 200 times faster than conventional ultrasound systems. In addition to providing exceptional image quality, this unique technology gave rise to several innovations which have changed the paradigm of ultrasound imaging: ShearWave™ Elastography (SWE™), UltraFast™ Doppler technology, Angio PL.U.S – Planewave UltraSensitive™ Imaging and, more recently, TriVu. ShearWave Elastography allows physicians to visualise and analyse the stiffness of tissue in real-time using a reliable, reproducible and non-invasive procedure. This is an important parameter in diagnosing potentially malignant lesions or other diseased tissue. As of today, over 300 publications have demonstrated the value of SWE in the care of patients with a wide range of diseases. The UltraFast Doppler combines colour flow imaging and pulsed wave Doppler into one simple test, providing physicians with the results of both simultaneously, therefore enhancing efficiency. The latest innovation, Angio PL.U.S, provides a higher level of microvascular imaging through significantly improved colour sensitivity and spatial resolution, while maintaining exceptional 2D image quality. SuperSonic Imagine has been granted regulatory clearances for the commercialisation of Aixplorer® on the main markets. Since April 2014, the SuperSonic Imagine company has been listed on Euronext (symbol: SSI).

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¹ A previous study on 1,800 patients, conducted in Europe and the USA, had demonstrated in 2011 that ShearWave elastography combined with conventional ultrasound criteria led to a better diagnostic of breast lesions by significantly improving the exam's specificity. Since then, the elastographic criteria has been integrated into the BI-RADS®(3) classification by the American College of Radiology, and other scientific companies have also published practical recommendations unanimously recognising the results of this first study.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/040cdcb9-307e-49c2-9481-e1d9dd09ffd8