Frost & Sullivan Recognizes Omnyx for Strategic Leadership in Digital Pathology
Omnyx Announcement Press Release:
PITTSBURGH – November 30, 2009 – Based on their global analysis of the digital pathology market and the vendors serving it, Frost & Sullivan presents Omnyx with the 2009 Growth Strategy Leadership Award. This honor is also shared with GE Healthcare and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). The two global healthcare brands came together to form the joint venture in June of 2008.
"Over the last few years, a change in mindset has been evident in the pathology area, with increasing demands for automating the processes that take place in the laboratory – from improving the workflow to supporting better and faster care, and meeting the demands for advanced data management.
"Digital pathology systems enable such an environment and Omnyx has demonstrated significant knowledge and dedication to gain a strong foothold in what can potentially be a multi-billion dollar global market. The ability to envisage the IT solutions in pathology, understand customer needs and to follow a growth strategy to address those is a testament to the company's vision and the strength of the GE Healthcare and UPMC partnership and further validates the promise of digital pathology." says Frost & Sullivan Programme Leader, Konstantinos Nikolopoulos.
"We are honored to receive this distinctive recognition from Frost & Sullivan." says Gene Cartwright, CEO of Omnyx. "Our team is very focused on building a world-class product for pathologists and it's very exciting to receive acknowledgement from thought leaders in healthcare for our efforts." Cartwright concludes.
"Omnyx has strongly invested in end-user feedback to design, test and improve its digital pathology offering. By utilizing UPMC's expertise in the pathology space the company has been able to work directly with world-class clinical users who are an integral part of the team. This is a unique arrangement and allows Omnyx to benefit both in terms of product design and by utilizing UPMC as a proving ground within its global network of hospitals and labs." continues Nikolopoulos of Frost & Sullivan.
Tony Melanson, Vice President of Strategy and Marketing of Omnyx comments "We are developing a complete system that includes scanners, imaging software and workflow software. We are approaching digital pathology by looking at the challenge through the eyes of pathologists, histotechnicians and the information technology managers who work in and support high throughput clinical environments. Our approach has been to develop a system for pathologists by pathologists through a close relationship with UPMC. We recognized immediately that the transition to digital would only be successful if the products were developed based on a complete understanding of the user in the context of their clinical working environment," Melanson concludes.
The products from Omnyx also address the major technical challenges that have historically existed in digital pathology: scanning speed, image quality, image viewing performance and image storage. The Omnyx scanner breaks the tradeoff between speed and image quality with its patented independent dual sensor technology that was developed in conjunction with the GE Research Center. Image viewing speed and performance have also historically been technical obstacles for digital pathology. By working with GE engineers in Israel, Omnyx has developed a streaming technology optimized for pathology images that will allow pathologists to navigate digital pathology images with near zero-latency over standard hospital networks and even from home. Image storage has been an obstacle and Omnyx is designing their storage system to scale to the needs of large scale clinical operations like UPMC. Omnyx is also working closely with the GE Enterprise Archive team to interoperate with that product for long term medical image archiving.
"GE Healthcare's expertise covers several areas within medical imaging and healthcare information technologies and most of its products are the result of sustained and committed R&D investment. GE has a strong history of developing winning solutions in parallel areas to pathology – like radiology and cardiology for example – offering benefits such as multi-modality functionality, advanced image display and analysis tools, remote access capabilities and working interfaces with wider departmental and enterprise information systems to allow maximum efficiencies. Omnyx is perfectly positioned to draw from GE's experience in solving technical challenges and its deep roots in engineering and can build upon the company's proven product portfolio to deliver a market leading digital pathology platform." concludes Nikolopoulos.
