Press conference involving POSC and major company

Following up on the rumors we have been chasing  for two weeks, it appears that staffers at Positron Corporation  (OTCBB:POSC) have been busy making arrangements for a soon to be  announced press conference.

Yesterday, prices took a hit after a blogger made false and  defamatory accusations against not only BioMedReports, but the company  as well. This is the second time that the blogger has attacked  BioMedReports's and owners of this website intend to take swift and  complete legal action against the owner/author of that web site. Thus  far, after multiple requests, the author of the website has refused to  provide us with his legal contact information so that our legal  department can commence those actions.

The fact remains that POSC is an established company that has been in  business for over a quarter of a century and that a positive  announcement- apparently worthy of a press conference- will be made  public in the coming days. Speculation continues that a multi-billion  dollar company trading on the NYSE at over $50 per share has taken an  interest in the company.

Furthermore, sources at the company tell BioMedReports that pending  orders for their FDA approved, Frost and Sullivan award winning imaging  system run at least "over one hundred deep."

As we told subscribers two days ago, we fully expect the stock price  to see substantial  gains (beyond the initial 43% gains seen immediately  after our trade alert) as it now appears that the company had  positioned itself to be the clear leader in  the five billion dollar  molecular imaging market. Positron's PET  (Positron Emission Tomography)  scanner, known as the “Attrius”, has  robust cardiac specific imaging  software and, more importantly, is the  only "PET" imaging device in the  entire industry (see related story).

In a letter to   shareholders last month, the chairman of the board for the company  informed investors that "Positron has  several immediate opportunities  with some of the largest companies in  the nuclear medicine industry.  Any combination of success with these  opportunities will have a  tremendous positive present and future impact  on Positron."

It is clear that a positive development worthy of a full press  conference (rumored arrangements place it at the Nasdaq MarketSite in  New York City) may be officially announced as early as Monday.

If true, naked shorters who took negative positions in the stock will  not only have to cover, they will help push the stock price much higher  by doing so.

Developing...

A senior POSC official has confirmed  to BioMedReports that a "very  important and positive development  regarding a partnership whose details  can not yet be discussed" will be  presented at the announced press conference.      "Obviously, the company has gone through great expense and effort to   organize this important event, and we would not be undertaking such   tasks if the announcements we have have to make weren't important to our   company and it's shareholders," said the official.

The following was released by the company via press release this  morning:

Positron Corporation (OTCBB:POSC), a molecular  imaging  solutions company focused on Nuclear Cardiology, today announced  that  its CEO Patrick Rooney and senior executives will present at the NASDAQ MarketSite in   Times Square, New York City, NY.

When: May 5, 2010, 1:00 pm EDT

Where: NASDAQ MarketSite, 4 Times Square, New York, NY

We will feature an updated, fully press-released interview  with the CEO of Positron Corp. (POSC.OB) tomorrow morning.

As we told you last week, it is expected that some very positive  developments will be highlighted and that the company will emerge as the  clear leader in molecular imaging devices/software for cardiology in  the United States  and internationally.

Some key details about a big partnership which will be revealed at  the  press conference can not be discussed until early May, but we fully  expect that the stock will trade higher as the press conference date  approaches in anticipation of that news and our interview with the CEO  will attempt to put some of those topics and their effects on the  company's market-cap in perspective.

Text of today's company's press release is below:

Positron Corporation (OTCBB:POSC), a molecular   imaging solutions company focused on Nuclear Cardiology, today announced   that its CEO Patrick G. Rooney and senior executives will present at   the NASDAQ  MarketSite in Times Square, New York City, NY.

Topics to include: The Company will introduce  business  initiatives and certain strategic alliances with industry  leading  companies and will address how certain opportunities will  impact the  industry and the Company.

Senior Executives will discuss the Company's leadership role in the   Nuclear Medicine industry and the immediate demand driving Cardiac PET   (positron emission tomography) as a result of many positive industry   factors pushing Cardiac PET as the preferred nuclear cardiology imaging   modality. In addition, Positron Executives will discuss the Company's   revolutionary radiopharmaceutical distribution devices as to how they   enable disintermediation by manufacturers, wholesalers and consumers   alike.

Additional information will be given about the Company's patient   injection device as it applies to patient care and worker safety with   oncology and cardiology therapeutic and diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals.

When: May 5, 2010, 1:00 pm EDT

Where: NASDAQ MarketSite, 4 Times Square, New York, NY

BiomedReports: I know you can’t get into  too many details about some of the news that you’ll be discussing at the  upcoming press conference, but are a few things you can share with us?

Rooney: I think we want to bring  to market, exactly the position that the company is in. We do have some  big important strategic alliances that we will be talking about for the  first time. Some of them are already in contract form and we cannot  discuss them until after early May, and others involve  radiopharmaceutical companies that will be getting into the  radiopharmaceutical market with us, in other words, they have the drug,  but they may not have the device to image this drug on.

BiomedReports: Sounds like  your company is suddenly getting a lot of attention?

Rooney: The cardiac PET industry  is in the beginning of a massive upswing.

BiomedReports: Why is  that?

For one, it’s better medicine. All the leading  medical organizations have really gotten behind the cardiac PET  technology. Organizations like the Society of Nuclear Cardiology, The  American College of Cardiology, The American Society of Nuclear  Cardiology, basically the whole nuclear cardiology industry has really  put the endorsement stamp on Cardiac PET.

(Note: Cardiac PET (or cardiac  positron emission tomography) is a form of diagnostic imaging  in which patients are evaluated using a PET scanner after intravenously  injected with a radioisotope.

This form of diagnostic imaging has  traditionally been perceived as cost-prohibitive in comparison to  general nuclear  medicine cardiac stress testing using single photon emission computed tomography  (SPECT). However, due to significant gains in access to scanners,  related to the widely accepted role of PET/CT in clinical oncology,  cardiac PET is now set to become more widely available, particularly  given various clinical and technical advantages that will make this a  potential test of choice in the diagnosis of coronary artery/heart  disease.)

The standard of care throughout history has been  SPECT, but really it’s inferior to our PET technology. The financial  reimbursement for these services from places like CMS; Medicare and  Medicaid have just increased PET Reimbursement and decreased SPECT  reimbursement.

So in the past, where cardiac imaging was, PET  versus SPECT, 99% of the 18 million exams per year were done with a  SPECT imaging system.

BiomedReports: Why?

Rooney: Because there was a  massive distribution of SPECT cameras, the drugs were more readily  available and reimbursement is comparable. Also, a SPECT camera cost  much less than a PET camera.

BiomedReports: What’s  changed?

Rooney: A few things, actually.

The first thing is that now all of reimbursement  money from insurers and Medicare/Medicaid has increased for PET and  decreased for SPECT.  These insurers are now pushing physicians to a  better imaging modality, a better medical practice.

BiomedReports: Why are  they doing that?

Rooney: Simply because it’s better  and it actually saves them money in the long run.

They’ve all said ‘We’ll pay more to get better  imaging now.’

It helps everyone down the line.

This bodes well for POSC, I would imagine because  our company is the only dedicated Cardiac PET manufacturer in the world.  There is no one else. Siemens, Philips Medical and GE Healthcare make  PET CTs – those are oncology based; primarily, oncology based. In other  words, they can be for cardiac, but there’s radiation exposure,  they’re  too expensive and actually, they’re too large. Their machines cost more  than twice what ours does. I believe that’s a fair number and  encompasses a range.

The other thing that has occurred is that there is a  worldwide shortage of Moly, or Molybdenum (also known widely as Mo 99),  which is necessary isotope used for SPECT imaging. It’s the primary  drug used in SPECT imaging procedures. So SPECT imaging has just taken  another hit, if you will and we’re seeing physicians in droves move away  from SPECT sooner and going to PET.

(Note:  Molybdenum is mined as a principal ore, and is also recovered as a  byproduct of copper and tungsten mining. On May 18, 2009, the National  Research Universal (NRU) reactor in Chalk River, Ontario—operated by  Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL)—was taken offline for immediate  repair after a heavy water leak was found at the base of the reactor  vessel. The NRU reactor is one of the world’s major molybdenum 99 (Mo  99) supply sources; Mo 99 is the raw material used to produce a key  isotope used in medical imaging procedures. According to AECL, the  reactor normally supplies about 50 percent of the Mo 99 used globally  for diagnostic nuclear medicine studies. The U.S. and Canadian medical  communities are most affected by the current shortage. With only five  major Mo 99 reactors around the globe, and the Chalk River facility  producing roughly half of the world’s supply, the situation means Mo 99  will be in short supply.) During the past three years, different  reactors have been offline unexpectedly for extended periods of time,  creating vast Mo 99 shortages. [See the informative PDF document at  the FDA government site authored by Covidien (NYSE: COV)]

This change from SPECT to PET is all happening sooner than most  expected. The evolution was already happening, but the reimbursement and  Moly shortages have really taken things up a notch.

During the last three months alone, requests for proposals (for  equipment pricing and purchases) at our company from the medical  industry have increased three-fold.

The recent volcano incident has made a bad situation even worse. They  just had a two week shut down in Europe where no Moly was being  shipped, so that’s how sensitive the situation has become. You need  drugs to image the patient. There is nothing you can do without them.

BiomedReports: What about the isotope you  use in your machines?

Rooney: By contrast, the PET isotope is not in short  supply. Quite frankly it is very readily available. These are some of  the many factors that we’ll be discussing in more detail at our upcoming  press conference.

Our competitors, which are really like comparing apples to oranges,  are getting hammered. I mean really hammered.

BiomedReports: How else has this affected  your company and the future prospects of business?

On the PET side, we are now working on some significant strategic  alliances which we will talk about. For example, one of our new markets  that has very few PET systems in it is the Canadian market. We look to  be selling a significant amount of systems in Canada. With a population  of 38 million plus, that is a large market for us to be expanding into.

Compared to the United States, it’s a smaller market, but what’s nice  is that we are the only dedicated cardiac PET manufacturer in the  world, so the expansion opportunities will continue. We plan on being a  leader in the market place not only here in the U.S. (where the market  opportunities call for four to six thousand machines), but also outside  the U.S. There will be an announcement shortly that will impact those  markets opportunities for us in a substantial way.

BiomedReports: What are some of your  challenges going forward?

Rooney: One of our biggest challenges is that we’re  unknown to most of Wall Street. We’ve been around for 27 years, but  that’s mostly been as an academic company. Now it’s a true business  enterprise with a market place that is now completely pro PET and in the  need of our technology. The stars have aligned.

BiomedReports: Your business also has a pharma side. What can  you tell us about that?

On the pharmaceuticals side, we are now working with a number of  companies on our automated dose dispensing device. We’ve talked about  some of that that as part of the upcoming presentation at the press  conference.  We have these revolutionary dose dispensing  devices which automate, yet comply with exposure regulations while still  allowing us to expand and enhance the distribution of  radiopharmaceuticals (radioactive pharmaceuticals used in the field of  nuclear medicine as tracers in the diagnosis and treatment of many  diseases).

These machines are designed for use in both oncology and  radiopharmaceuticals.

BiomedReports: What will these developments  do for the value or market cap of the company?

When we say that we will be leaders of this Cardiac Pet market, I  think that will be evident to everyone within the next few months.  Positron is clearly the pioneer in Positron Emission  Tomography. We’re  the first name in PET. Now our technology has received some validation  with the big awards that we’ve been given and by the fact that PET is  now the future of radiocardiology.

Everyone has been speculating on the identity of  the potential partner for Positron Corporation's (OTC BB: POSC.OB)  upcoming partnership anouncements. BioMedReports has learned that  tomorrow morning we may get some more information about the company (or  companies) involved directly from POSC.

Apparently, today's special interview with the CEO has caused a  number of calls to the company for more information regarding the impact  of potential revenues for POSC, etc and the company will be addressing  some of those topics on Thursday morning.

As we reported yesterday, we fully anticipate that the stock will  trade higher in anticipation of next week's already announced pressw  conference which is to take place at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York  City. Traders love forward looking news events that drive stock prices  higher and since the company has already told us that they are not going  to be doing anything like dilutive financing, the light is green for  further upward action in the coming days.

The stock price shot up over 38% as of the printing of this article  after CEO  Patrick Rooney's exclusive ineterview with BioMedReports, in which  he stated that his company is now poised to become the leader of the  lucrative Cardiac Pet market place. "I think that will be evident  to  everyone within the next few months," said Rooney.

Two of our best technical analysts  take a look at the short squeeze that is underway with POSC.

This morning's positive press release, in which the company reveals  it's expectations that the new radiopharmaceutical business should  generate as much revenue- if not more- than as it's core PET business,  should help that push.

Said CEO Pat Rooney in this morning's release: "While most in the         industry already know that PET is the future of nuclear  cardiology,  we        fully expect that an equal to greater amount of revenue and   profits will        be generated by our new proprietary automated  radiopharmaceutical  device        as it is used in both the cardiac and  oncology sectors."

It is now widely rumored that a large cap NYSE company trading at  around $50 per share has already tapped this tiny micro-cap company for a  partnership or strategic alliance. Perhaps that partnership involves  the company's new technology.

Another look:

Patrick G. Rooney, the Chariman of the Board of  Positron Corporation (OTC:POSC.OB) - a molecular imaging company focused  on Nuclear Cardiology- has confirmed in an exclusive interview with  BioMedReports that while his company will be profitable this year, he  sees it becoming much more profitable next year and so on- year over  year- going forward.

While his candid comments to us appeared bold and optimistic, his  estimates apparently did not include some of the resources and  capabilities that will be brought to the table for POSC by some of the  partnerships that are about to be announced publicly.

"Once you  add those relationships, the revenue and profit numbers increase  significantly," explains Rooney. "It’s very significant.”

BioMedReports  learned yesterday that while POSC's position as the leading Cardio PET  imaging manufacturer makes the company very attractive to small and  micro-cap investors, its revolutionary Pharm-Assist® automated  radiopharmaceutical distribution device is what has attracted the  attention of not only one multi-billion dollar NYSE company which has  already inked a yet-to-be announced deal with Positron, but other  publicly traded, large cap companies as well.

Rooney spoke  exclusively to us about the technologies and strategic alliances his  company will be presenting at POSC's upcoming news conference at the  Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City.

The following is a transcript  of Rooney's comments to us:

"In 2008, we acquired a company in Indianapolis and this company  brought us two things, they brought us pharmaceutical expertise and they  brought us a device that looked like a large, fat refrigerator. What  this device does is pretty incredible. It’s an automated virtual  pharmacy.

"The way the world works now, if you want to get your  heart imaged, your doctor picks up the phone and calls a registered  pharmacy specializing in the preparation and delivery of radioactive  drugs (radiopharmacy).  Once they get the right person on the phone,  they order a dose or a ‘syringe’ – a cocktail of the right  radiopharmaceutical.  You get injected with it and then you get imaged.

"There  are about five hundred of these special pharmacies across the country,  many of which are run by Cardinal Health, Covidien and General Electric  Co.  What our device does, is that it compounds these same  radiopharmaceuticals on site. So literarily, we can install these  devices at hospitals or at the cardiologist’s office so that when I walk  in as a patient, they’re not saying ‘hey come back tomorrow so that we  have time to order you a dose of radioactivity.’ Instead, the doctor  hits some buttons and the dose comes out of this ‘vending machine,’ if  you will.

"Our (Pharm-Assist®) machine is not only a very  attractive option for patients and doctors, but also to many of the  current companies and drug manufacturers who deal in the cardiac and  oncology imaging space because instead of taking on the expense of  opening up a brick and mortar location for $3+ million and being worried  about the expensive overhead and personnel costs of selling  radiopharmaceuticals, we can install this inexpensive, automated device  that is compliant with all the U.S. rules and regulations for safety and  exposure issues.  It works well in emergency rooms, in cardiology  offices, etc.  There are many benefits to it, including the fact that it  saves a great deal of money, gas, and time. In addition, if you’re  trying to get a dose and you’re the 10th person in line ordering, you  may not get the dose.  With our system, you’re guaranteed to get a dose.  

"With this component, POSC brings in the imaging, the dose  dispensing of these radiopharmaceuticals to the doctor’s office. So  what’s going to happen in the coming months is we’re going to be  offering full solutions to the industry. We’re going to say, ‘Hey doc,  we can get you a PET camera and we can get it to you as a rental, thanks  to our new finance partners, or as an outright sale/purchase.  In  addition, in a very similar way to which someone puts in a vending  machine, we’ll install our automated pharmacy device and sell the drug  products through it at a better price while being more efficient and  more effective.

"The current technologies, including all the old  SPECT imaging systems that are out there, are all outdated. They’re  also more expensive and invasive. For example, 35% of the time, the use  of a SPECT imaging system requires that additional imaging work be done  in order to get a clearer picture of what is going on. Our PET scan  technology works and it’s the future of medicine. Government healthcare  agencies, insurance companies, and everyone else involved prefers it,  that’s why it’s important that we’re the undisputed leader in the  cardiac PET field. When you give a patient a PET scan, across the board  the results are much clearer and the technology works. It will tell you  in a clear and unambiguous fashion what your issue is. A patient doesn’t  need to have someone go into their artery in order to put something  into their heart to have a look at what is going on.

"These  technologies have brought us a wave of new interest for partnerships,  strategic alliances and, frankly, we’re having to start staffing and  hiring much faster than ever before. We’re a company that has been  waiting for the evolution to come and now we find that it’s coming on  stronger than we thought.

"Although it has taken some time,  development and really honing in all of our components, we are there  now.

"We will be profitable this year, much more profitable next year and  so on- year over year going forward; and that doesn’t include some of  the resources and capabilities that will be brought to the table by some  of the partnerships that are about to be announced. Once you add those  relationships, the revenue and profit numbers increase significantly.  It’s very significant.”

Company shares gained 48% after Rooney's comments to BioMedReports  two days ago, before giving up $.02 in Thursday's trading action.  Analysts expect that shares will continue to trend higher as we get  closer to Wednesday's press conference in New York.