Philips All In on Digital Pathology
It will come as no surprise to anyone in the digital pathology space that Philips has been transforming the digital pathology market from several directions.
Of course, the company completed a non-inferiority study which has been published in The American Journal of Surgical Pathology, the results of which were included in their submission to the FDA last year for primary diagnosis.
Since then Philips has had an increasing presence at pathology and histology meetings with their US Roadshow, with dates running from September through December 2017. And they have ramped up their marketing effort to promote their system as the only one FDA approved on the US market for primary diagnosis in surgical pathology.
I had the opportunity to attend one of their roadshow events in Chicago last month to see what the company has and hear about their vision for the future. The sheer scale of the displays of scanners, software and their virtual reality experience for digital pathology laboratory workflows showed the considerable investment Philips Digital Pathology has made as a part of their healthcare products.
When I spoke with management from the company at USCAP a couple of years ago it was clear the vision included digital pathology as being a part of their very extensive healthcare portfolio and getting their technologies into laboratories.
At the recent roadshow, Dr. Stephen Raab spoke, as he does so well, on quality in the laboratory and strongly stated that digital pathology would improve quality beyond anything that has ever been done with analog slides alone.
Dr. Raab made the point that pathology is a kind of solitary existence. Most of us sit at our microscopes, so to speak, chained to them with a mechanism to transcribe our diagnoses and result those in such a manner to provide timely results to clinicians. But the sheer analog medium of glass slides is prohibitive to sharing those cases efficiently, getting second opinions in a timely manner and conducting necessary peer reviews.
Digital pathology is poised to revolutionize efficiency and second reviews without loss of productivity because the images can be reviewed anytime, anywhere. This will allow for a more efficient manner of case distribution, second reviews and quality assurance within laboratories, without delaying turnaround time or the inconvenience of sending and receiving glass slides.
And Philips is leading the charge now to deploy this technology for clinical use in the US as well as across the world. As they remain the only vendor approved by the US FDA to market their systems for primary diagnosis, they have a competitive advantage over their competitors, while also setting the bar very high for others who seek FDA clearance.
I would encourage you to take in a roadshow in a city near you in the upcoming months to see the progress they have made in a very short time and hear their vision.
