Aperio to Market Visiopharm’s New Computer Assisted Stereological Toolbox for Whole Slide Stereology

Nice combination of leading companies combining whole slide and stereology.  These are the type of applications that are not possible with analog slides alone and provide high throughput increased quantitation beyond light microscopy.  The potential to analyze cellular biology through digital techniques over tumor biology alone with conventional microscopy will be one of the most significant value adds for digital pathology. 

Partnership Expands High-Performance Digital Pathology Platform 

Vista, CA and Hørsholm, Denmark — October 20, 2011 — Aperio, the global leader in digital pathology solutions that improve patient care, and Visiopharm, a leading provider of advanced software for quantitative microscopy for life sciences, today announced a partnership in which Aperio will market Visiopharm’s computer assisted stereological toolbox (newCAST™) in Europe. 

Leveraging Aperio’s open architecture, newCAST Whole Slide Stereology package will be integrated into the company’s applications framework and accessible through its Spectrum™ information management system. The partnership expands Aperio’s existing suite of analysis tools that include area quantification, cell quantification, microvessel analysis, rare event detection and Genie histology pattern recognition. 

“Our partnership with Visiopharm enhances our ability to provide stereological data to researchers," said Dirk G. Soenksen, CEO of Aperio. “We are excited that Visiopharm recognizes the value of marketing their leading Whole Slide Stereology tools on Aperio’s platform.” 

Stereology allows researchers to answer fundamentally different research questions than image analysis or manual assessment of histological sections. With stereology, researchers can answer questions relating to total micro-structural content in 3-D, such as total number (of cells), length of structures, surface area of structures, and volume of structures. These properties are provided as statistically unbiased estimates with a known precision, and are based upon 2-D histological sections. 

In particular, Aperio users who publish neurological, pulmonary and toxicologic data will benefit from the additional capabilities provided by this comprehensive set of stereology tools. 

Dr. Michael Grunkin, CEO of Visiopharm, stated, “An increasing number of scientific societies and journals are realizing that accuracy of quantitative data requires stereological methods for estimation. Therefore guidelines recommending, and in some cases mandating, stereology for quantitative studies are being adopted. With increasing regulatory attention to stereology, biopharma executives and researchers are also realizing that stereology is a method they can no longer afford to ignore. With its patented Whole Slide Stereology software, Visiopharm is providing an efficient research tool that makes it realistic to include stereology even in research environments with high throughput requirements” 

Aperio’s digital pathology platform provides a unique combination of instruments, image management software and a patent-protected architecture that allows image analysis partners such as Visiopharm to offer their applications to the largest and fastest growing installed base (850 systems, including 550 in hospitals and reference labs) of digital pathology customers. 

About Visiopharm

Visiopharm is an international technology leader in histoinformatics, covering image analysis, stereology, and data management. Our solutions reduce labor costs, improve productivity, standardize quantitative processes, and produce accurate, traceable, quantitative results for histopathology. Throughout the world pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies, universities, hospitals and contract research organizations successfully use Visiopharm software to obtain scientifically trustworthy data. 

About Aperio 

Aperio is the leading provider of digital pathology solutions in hospitals, reference labs, and pharmaceutical and research institutions across the world. Today, our affordable and complete product portfolio improves patient care by enhancing quality assurance, delivering more efficient workflows, facilitating access to new and more targeted therapies, and improving pathologists’ skills via lifelong education. Our comprehensive product line features our ScanScope® scanners, Spectrum™ image management (PACS) software, SecondSlide® slide sharing service for pathology, and image analysis tools and services. Aperio’s products are FDA cleared for specific clinical applications, and are intended for research and education use for other applications. For clearance updates and more information please visit www.aperio.com. 

Contacts: 

Tasha Hicks, Aperio, Director of Marketing (760.539.1118; tasha@aperio.com)

Lene Gerlach, Visiopharm,  Vice President Business Development (+45 2031 7460; lge@visiopharm.com)