By Shane Tickell, CEO, IMS MAXIMS.
Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) and Medical Center Leeuwarden (MCL), one of the largest non-university hospital in the Netherlands and one of the country's top teaching hospitals, announced a long-term agreement. The partnership will give MCL continuous access to Philips' state-of-the-art ultrasound technology throughout its cardiology department for the next ten years. Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) announced the launch of EPIQ ultrasound system, offering an entirely new level of clinical confidence with a first-of-its-kind ultrasound architecture that is a totally new approach to creating ultrasound images without compromise. Making its debut at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) 2013 Congress in Amsterdam, EPIQ features a new imaging technology called nSIGHT that when combined with Philips' Anatomical Intelligence technology, delivers a powerful combination of speed and image clarity. 
To support patients, physicians and clinical staff, Siemens has developed products and solutions especially tailored to the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. These include a new cardiac catheter, clinical IT, applications for computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging and a new system for cardiac molecular imaging. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the number of people dying of cardiovascular diseases will increase to about 23.3 million world-wide by 2030.