Philips and Genomic Health Announce Digital Pathology Partnership

Interesting news yesterday from Philips and Genomic Health announcing a collaboration of their technologies. For many years I have thought one of the main drivers for digital pathology adoption in an increasing trend towards personalized, predictive and pre-emptive medicine would be the need for a bridge between morphology and molecular.  Often times the paraffin block and glass slide guide what additional genomic/proteomic studies need to be performed, perhaps at another laboratory or by another organization without immediate access to the morphology piece.  The necessary identification of specific areas of a slide, areas of a tumor, or particular cells in an area with tumor heterogeneity require pathologist selection using the tissue based slide review for appropriate genomic testing.  Neither morphology nor molecular analysis can stand on their own and require each other to complement the findings between the two modalities for best clinical practice to guide appropriate therapy.  I gather we may see more of these partnerships utilizing digital pathology to narrow the gap between morphology and molecular.

Royal Philips has announced a collaboration with Genomic Health, Inc., a provider of genomic-based diagnostic tests, to leverage Philips digital pathology tools in Genomic Health’s continuing scale up of its molecular diagnostic testing processes. 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. Pathologic evaluation of tumor tissue specimens is a critical step in the genomic testing process conducted by Genomic Health’s Clinical Reference Laboratory.  These genomic tests support physicians’ ability to deliver personalized treatment for patients diagnosed with complex disease such as cancer.

“By utilizing Philips’s latest digital pathology solution, we are providing our pathologists with a state-of-the-art system that will provide the next level of scalability and efficiency for our overall pre-analytical process, adding new capabilities that will be increasingly important as worldwide demand for Genomic Health’s tests continues to grow,” said Jon Cassel, Senior Vice President of Operations at Genomic Health.

Philips lntelliSite Pathology Solution* is an automated digital pathology image creation, management and analysis system comprised of an ultra-fast pathology slide scanner, an image management system and case viewer. This solution is complemented by advanced software tools to manage the scanning, storage, presentation, research analysis and sharing of information.