Prevora Blog

Hello everyone,

Please see below for the press release that began circulating yesterday that is talking about some of the market research that was conducted by CHX Technologies in collaboration with Ipsos-Reid. I think that you will find the content very informative.

Take care,
Tyler

For immediate release: October 20, 2008 Toronto

Boomers & Seniors Are Looking for More Preventive Dental Care

Dental care is a major component of the Canadian healthcare system. It accounts for 7% of total spending,rivals the nation’s budget for heart disease and cancer, and becomes vital to overall health as Canadians grow older. It is increasingly clear, for example, that healthy gums and teeth are linked to a healthy heart. Dental benefits, moreover, are the second most expensive benefit cost for Canadian employers and are thereby important to the competitiveness of the Canadian economy.

As people age, their preferences for health care services and a healthy lifestyle change. The Boomers, for example, take multivitamins like no other age group, clog the local gym at mid-morning and regularly visit the Internet for health care information. Boomers are the new healthcare consumers who ask for second opinions and are more demanding of healthcare providers.

In this context, it is important to know what Boomers and Seniors want from their dental services – a topic for which there is little or no information. To find out, CHX Technologies, a dental pharmaceutical company, commissioned Ipsos-Reid, the leading Canadian market research firm, to conduct a national survey of Canadians aged 40+ about their preferences for dental services. The results are insightful and instructive not only to Canadian dental offices, but also to the overall Canadian healthcare debate.

The survey found the following:

— 41% of Canadians aged 40+ have had a filling or a crown put in over the past year.

— The most common method for which Canadians over the age of 40 pay for their dental services is out of pocket, with 37% reporting this is how they usually pay. This number increases to six in ten (59%) among those 70+.

— Over the past two years, one quarter (24%) of Canadians aged 40+ have spent more then $400 out of their own pocket on dental services.

— If they had to purchase a dental plan for their family, 75% said that it was important that this plan include filling for cavities, while 74% stated that it was important that this plan included prevention of gum disease. Other important factors include oral cancer diagnosis (66%), a new preventative program for tooth decay (63%), crowns (53%), dental implants (40%), and cosmetic services such as whitening (25%)

— Half (50%) said that they would follow their dentists recommendations for purchasing a new preventive coating to reduce their chances of further decay at the gum line. One in five (21%) would pay for this new preventive coating regardless of whether insurance would cover it or not..

— Six in ten (59%) Canadians aged 40+ expressed interest in Partners in Prevention, a growing network of Canadian dental offices which provide prevention services to people over 40. Four in ten said they would want their dentist to join Partners in Prevention or would ask their dentist if they were going to become a Partner in Prevention. Two in ten (18%) said they would either visit a Partner in Prevention or select a Partner in Prevention as their new dentist.

The Ipsos-Reid survey of 1,048 Canadians aged 40 and over was conducted on-line over 7 days in mid July, 2008. An unweighted probability sample of this size, with a 100% response rate, would have an estimated margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what the results would have been had the entire adult population aged 40+ in Canada been polled.

For more information on this survey visit www.partnersinprevention.ca or www.Ipsos-Reid.ca, or contact

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Hello,

As many of you know, Prevora, the antibacterial tooth coating used in Canadian dental offices to prevent root caries, has a very large program of randomized controlled studies and practice management studies underway. One of these studies, the Prevention of Adult Caries Study, has been underway for more than a year and has recently met an important milestone. See below.

Some interesting observations from this study are:

- an excellent safety profile, similar to what we have seen in other studies and in Canadian dental office use

- a ready supply of patients.  The study is enrolling adult patients with advanced stages of this chronic disease, primarily from existing patient caseloads. Seems this disease is as prevalent as many of the epidemiological studies report, and as many of the Prevora users indicate.

I am excited about this growing base of evidence for Prevora, which we will share with our accounts over the coming months.

Thanks for your interest,
Tyler

The Prevention of Adult Caries Study of Prevora Achieves Full Enrolment.

CHX Technologies Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company developing new preventive products for adult oral diseases, announced today that the Prevention of Adult Caries Study (PACS) of the antibacterial tooth coating called Prevora (100 mg/ml chlorhexidine acetate) has completed enrolment of study participants. Recruitment started in spring 2007, and 983 participants have been randomized in PACS.

PACS is a pivotal Phase III randomized, controlled clinical trial conducted under CHX Technologies’ Investigational New Drug license with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The study is expected to be the final study before filing a New Drug Application for Prevora to the FDA and is believed to be the largest study of its kind. PACS’ clinical endpoint is decayed tooth surfaces and the trial’s threshold for efficacy is a 20% reduction of such surfaces in the treated arm of the study versus placebo over one year.

Efficacy results from PACS are expected in the first half of 2010.

PACS has been sponsored largely by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, one institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study is being conducted at four clinical centers. At baseline, the mean age of the study participants was 43, and the mean number of decayed tooth surfaces was 33. Two out of three study participants in PACS visit the dentist at least once a year.

Tooth decay has become a common adult disease as the population ages. The U.S. Center for Disease Control reported last year, for example, that about one third of American seniors under age 74 had tooth decay at the gum line (also called root caries). Root caries is caused by a low-grade asymptomatic bacterial infection. Its emergence in older Americans is largely related to gum recession and the taking of several prescription drugs each day. It is a form of tooth decay which is difficult to treat with conventional restorative procedures and which has been reported to have connections to overall health.

Prevora is a clear and temporary tooth coating applied by the dental professional to the teeth of adult patients in a short, painless appointment. Prevora delivers on a sustained release basis, a common and safe antimicrobial compound, called chlorhexidine, to the bacterial infections on the teeth. This coating has been approved by Health Canada for the reduction of tooth decay at the gum line, and by the Irish Medicines Board for the reduction of tooth decay in adults and adolescents. CHX Technologies has begun marketing Prevora to dentists in several communities in Southern Ontario, and expects to proceed through mutual recognition in late 2008 for broader European approvals in 2009.

Prevora is the first new antibacterial product indicated for the reduction of adult tooth decay available to the dental professional. It is also the first product in CHX Technologies’ development program which is uniquely focused on new proven preventive dental products for the aging population.

For more information contact:

Ross Perry

CHX Technologies Inc.

rossperry@chxtechnologies.com

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