Data Presented in Oral Session at American Heart Association Meeting Further Demonstrates Imagify’s Clinical Value

Acusphere, Inc. (NASDAQ: ACUS) announced that additional analyses from its Phase 3 clinical trials of Imagify^™ (Perflubutane Polymer Microspheres) for Injectable Suspension were presented today at the annual American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in New Orleans, Louisiana. These results build upon the thesis presented at AHA last year that Imagify Perfusion Stress Echo is an effective and well-tolerated, minimally invasive approach to evaluating chest pain patients at risk for heart attack. The new analysis ascribes incremental predictive value to the use of Imagify for detecting coronary artery disease over other current clinical risk factors.

Imagify is the first echocardiography imaging agent designed and shown in clinical trials to assess myocardial perfusion (blood flow in the heart) accurately. Myocardial perfusion is a sensitive marker of coronary artery disease (CAD). Currently, perfusion information is not available using stress echocardiography (cardiac ultrasound), but must be obtained using a nuclear stress test. Imagify Perfusion Stress Echo would have many potential benefits over nuclear stress testing including quicker results, lower cost and no exposure to radioactivity. More than 10 million stress imaging procedures are done each year in the U.S. to detect CAD, the leading cause of death in the United States.

“We are pleased that the American Heart Association has once again selected additional analyses of Acusphere’s clinical trials on Imagify for oral presentation to the physician community here at the Scientific Sessions. We are confident that the continuing interest from clinicians for a valuable non-invasive predictive tool that helps detect coronary artery disease early on will assist us as we await approval from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration for Imagify,” said Sherri C. Oberg, President and CEO of Acusphere. “Imagify is a novel cardiac perfusion imaging agent, which for the first time will enable myocardial blood flow assessment in stress echo procedures, addressing a significant medical need.”

Michael Picard, M.D., Director, Clinical Echocardiography at Massachusetts General Hospital Heart Center gave the presentation and stated, “As described in the presentation, we continue to see that Perflubutane Polymer Microspheres for Injectable Suspension represent a technique that can easily be integrated into the current application of echocardiography. While we currently detect wall motion abnormalities with cardiac ultrasound the simultaneous addition of myocardial blood flow information that this technique makes possible should provide strong benefits in helping us better evaluate patients at risk for heart disease.