Tag - Icad

As technologies enable earlier diagnosis of cancer and other diseases, computer-aided detection systems (CADs), are critical to facilities such as women’s health-care centers that conduct mammograms to screen for breast cancer.

As one of the leaders in CAD technology used in the detection of breast cancer, Nashua, N.H.-based iCAD, Inc. (Nasdaq:ICAD) has enjoyed much investor interest in recent weeks, following news on April 4 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had approved a broader use of its technology. The clearance should put iCAD’s technology in thousands of additional mammogram machines by later this year.

ICAD stock, which started the year at $2.14 per share, closed at $3.60 on Friday, not far below its 52-week high of $4.24. Most analysts who follow the company see further room for growth as iCAD begins to recognize sales for its newly approved technologies for breast cancer detection, while working on ways to apply that same basic technology to the detection of other diseases such as colon cancer.

“They have a huge backlog of orders right now,” Jon Hickman, an analyst with MDB Capital Group, said in an interview with SmallCapInvestor.com. “They will keep making their existing products better and apply them to other cancers.”

The story of CADs in general (and iCAD in particular) is fairly complex, since these technologies do not work alone, but must be attached to a larger piece of equipment, such as a mammography machine.

The FDA, likewise, does not approve CAD technology in a vacuum. Rather, it reviews the safety and effectiveness of the technology when attached to a certain manufacturer’s equipment. ICAD’s big breakthrough last month was the approval of its SecondLook digital computer-aided detection system in FujiFilm Holdings Corp.’s digital mammography machines. The combination is aimed at screening for and diagnosing breast cancer earlier than the techniques now on the market.

Analyst Hickman projects sales from that iCAD/FujiFilm detection technology will reach $10 million to $11 million dollars within a year and a half. ICAD’s total revenues last year were $26.6 million, which offers some sense of the potential this latest . . .