Agoracom

Making Advances in the Dental Industry With Better Technology

Lantis Laser Improves the Traditional Dental X-Ray –  Lantis Laser has exclusive worldwide rights for Optical Coherence Tomography for the dental industry.  This OCT technology creates dental images that have 10 times greater resolution than today’s standard dental x-ray.  What that means is with this technology, dentists can detect tooth decay and periodontal disease much quicker than before.  Early detection allows for minimally invasive or non-invasive techniques that can be used to possibly reverse oral diseases.  This makes it easier for the patient and results in a higher standard of care.

Standard Dental X-Ray

OCT Imaging 

THERE IS A MARKET POTENTIAL OF $5 BILLION FOR OCT TECHNOLOGY IN THE DENTAL INDUSTRY.  OCT REPRESENTS THE NEXT STEP IN MEDICAL IMAGING.  HERE IS A LIST OF PAST AND PRESENT TECHNOLOGIES AND WHEN THEY WERE FIRST USED:

TECHNOLOGY    YEAR INTRODUCED

OCT                          2002
PET SCAN                 1999
MRI                           1983
CT SCAN                   1973
ULTRASOUND           1965
X-RAY                       1885


Lantis Laser (PK:  LLSR)  

Lantis Laser Inc. is a development stage public company with leading edge technology for the $5 Billion dental equipment market. Led by a team of proven business leaders and industry experts, Lantis is currently in Phase 2 development of its prototype OCT Dental Imaging SystemÔ that is designed to be the industry’s first means of early detection of both tooth decay and periodontal disease.






 

COMMENTARY
Lantis Laser’s OCT technology (Optical Coherence Tomography) is a new light based imaging system for the medical field.  Used in dentistry, it captures the images of teeth and gums at resolutions 10 times that of today’s standard x-ray machine.  X-rays were first used by dentists 121 years ago and the basic format has not advanced.   The OCT technology, however, provides clear information needed to make an early and accurate diagnosis and, since it is light-based, it does so without any harmful radiation.
There have been advances since the x-ray such as ultrasound, MRI, and petscan; however, the cost and size of those units are impractical for the dentist’s chair.  All of the dental literature and research shows that the industry needs a chair side, oral imaging system that provides impeccable information helping perform an accurate diagnosis.  Lantis Laser’s OCT will help dentists move forward towards the medical model – treat disease early on, when you find it.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Company
Lantis Laser Inc. (NASDAQ PK:LLSR), a development stage public company, has secured an exclusive license from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories and LightLab Imaging to commercialize a novel diagnostic technology for sale in the worldwide $5 Billion dental equipment market. Led by a team of proven business leaders and industry experts, Lantis is currently in Phase 2 development of its prototype OCT Dental Imaging SystemÔ (“OCT System”) that is designed to be the industry’s first means of early detection of both tooth decay and periodontal disease.

In November 2004 Lantis took control of an inactive public company, Hypervelocity, Inc., and changed the name to Lantis Laser Inc. (Nevada) with Lantis Laser, Inc. (New Jersey) being a wholly owned subsidiary.  On December 12, 2006 Lantis’ shares began trading on the NASDAQ Pink Sheets under the Symbol: LLSR.

The Opportunity
In the US, dental revenues are greater than $85 billion a year and growing annually at 6-7 percent. The dental industry is desperately in need of a means of early detection as available treatments for early stage oral disease are way ahead of current early stage detection capabilities. A system to document early diagnosis for insurance reimbursement purposes is an additional important advantage of the OCT System.

Lantis’s OCT Dental Imaging SystemÔ has the potential to initiate one of the biggest improvements in dental care in the last 100 years, by enabling dentistry to move to the medical model of care – find disease early and cure it. The OCT System produces up to 10 times the resolution of a digital x-ray and can be used to image both the teeth and gums. It can detect demineralization, the precursor to cavities, before there’s any actual decay so dentists can treat and even reverse early decay without drilling. Because periodontal disease has been called the second most widespread disease in the country by the AMA and the US Surgeon General, who have also cited associated cardiovascular and cancer risks, demand for the first available means of early detection is expected to be very strong. 

The OCT System uses a light-based technology invented at MIT, known as Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). OCT is considered the sixth modality of imaging after PET Scan, MRI, CT Scan, Ultrasound and x-ray. Its first commercial application was for ophthalmology where Carl Zeiss Meditec has generated sales of approximately $400 million dollars of their OCT Stratus system since introduction in 2002, making it the gold standard in that field. Management believes OCT is much more disruptive to dentistry because dentists have been relying on X-rays for over a hundred and twenty years, and over this period the capability to image tissue has not materially changed.

Market Potential
Dentists form the largest medical sub-group, with 140,000 practicing in 100,000 offices in the US and an estimated 100,000 offices in other developed countries. The immediate market for the OCT System is the installed base of digital x-ray/camera (50,000 Systems), representing approximately 25% of the offices, worldwide. It is projected that OCT System sales will be 60% into the installed base, 40% as part of new installations. Lantis projects that it will sell approximately 10,000 OCT Systems over the first 4 years of sales, representing a cumulative worldwide market penetration of 5.00%.  The early adopter market alone is estimated to be approximately 5.00%, so Lantis’s projections coincide with this universe.
 
 
Marketing Strategy
The OCT System will be sold through strategic alliances with OEM’s of digital x-ray, digital dental office platforms and intraoral cameras, who will install into the existing base and sell new installations. Lantis will develop a comprehensive package of information to support the marketing of the product. Lantis is now in Phase 2 development in which 5 Beta OCT Systems will be built for clinical use and validation studies before the final Phase 3 specification of the pre-production System. With classification as a diagnostic “aid” the OCT Dental Imaging SystemÔ faces minimal FDA scrutiny and is expected to be introduced to the dental market by the third quarter of 2008.