Interesting news that broke this morning in Europe from Royal Philips and PathXL. Press release courtesy of Philips. In an email from PathXL this morning, they mention “no immediate change to the way business is transacted. You can continue to count on operational support from the same customer team and contacts that you currently have. We will continue to operate from our current offices” for their current customers.  The email provides a contact for any questions or comments.  I gather we will be seeing more news on how this acquisition comes along.

I think this is great news for the digital pathology industry as a whole.  For Philips, it provides them a platform that is well established in education with research with PathXL’s Tutor and Tissuemark platforms among other applications.  For PathXL, there is increased opportunity with Philips backing and footprint in the clinical space which is a smaller component for PathXL. I think a nice complement for each company in the deal.

Philips expands its Digital Pathology Solutions portfolio with the acquisition of PathXL

Amsterdam, the Netherlands – Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) today announced that it has acquired PathXL, a Northern Ireland-based leader in digital pathology image analysis, workflow software and educational tools. PathXL’s image analysis and tissue pathology software will complement Philips’ Digital Pathology Solutions offering, and help expand the business’ leadership in this fast-growing field. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Pathology involves the examination of patient tissue samples and plays a crucial role in the diagnosis and treatment of a wide variety of diseases, including cancer. Philips is a pioneer and leader in the digitization of pathology, a fast-growing area in healthcare as pathology labs are under pressure to improve throughput and efficiency, enhance quality and to deliver new diagnostic tests for precision medicine.

“With this acquisition, we are accelerating our drive to support global medical institutions in their transition to digitized pathology workflows,” said Russ Granzow, General Manager of Philips Digital Pathology Solutions. “Together with PathXL we see a unique opportunity to amplify our combined technology leadership positions. We will be able to offer an intelligent and integrated solution that fulfills many needs in computational pathology, education, workflow solutions and image analytics. These important and growing disciplines within pathology will enable a high-quality quantitative analysis of digital whole slide images.”

Digital pathology will enable pathologists to review and share large sets of clinical data using image analytics with the aim to help improve the quality of diagnosis and has the potential to enable new therapies and ultimately improve patient outcomes. Philips’ lntelliSite Pathology Solution* is an automated digital pathology image creation, management and viewing system comprised of an ultra-fast pathology slide scanner, an image management system and dedicated software tools. 

PathXL, founded in 2004 and headquartered in Belfast, Northern Ireland, offers a range of digital pathology software applications to research and education segments of pathology and bio-pharma markets. The company has approximately 30 employees, offices in the UK and USA and distributors across three continents.

* In the European Union, the Philips IntelliSite Pathology Solution is CE Marked under the European Union’s ‘In Vitro Diagnostics Directive’ for in vitro diagnostic use. In Canada, the Philips IntelliSite Pathology Solution is licensed by Health Canada for in vitro diagnostic use. In the United States, the Philips IntelliSite Pathology Solution is indicated for in vitro diagnostic use for Manual Read of the Digital HER2 Application. The Philips IntelliSite Pathology Solution is registered for in vitro diagnostic use in Singapore and Middle East.

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