Echo Therapeutics Inc. (OTC:ECTE) reached a milestone with one of its two flagship products, the Prelude SkinPrep system, which is ready for clinical trials examining its use in dispensing lidocaine.

The Franklin, Mass.-based company, which is also developing a needle-free glucose monitoring system called the Symphony tCGM, said its development work on the Prelude system is complete and it’s ready for a study in the “near term.”

That study, to be conducted in conjunction with Ferndale Pharma Group, is aimed at driving an application for 510(k) clearance from the Food & Drug Administration. If the system wins clearance for dispensing lidocaine, it will give Echo access to what it called the more than $1 billion market for “enhanced, fast acting topical lidocaine.”

Echo said it also expects to test the Prelude for use with the Symphony system, which is undergoing a clinical trial expected to conclude during the fourth quarter. Preliminary results from the trial, examining the glucose monitor’s effectiveness compared with what Echo calls the industry’s “gold standard,” showed an accuracy rate of 97 percent.

The company is also on the investment trail, having engaged the services of Hayden IR, a New York-based investor relations consulting firm, to manage a “strategic investor relations campaign” this year. Echo’s banked more than $3.5 million in recent months, raising half a million from Philadelphia-area investors early in December, 2009, and another $3 million in November from a private stock placement.