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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About Royal Philips
Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people’s health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated solutions. The company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, image-guided therapy, patient monitoring and health informatics, as well as in consumer health and home care. Philips’ wholly owned subsidiary Philips Lighting is the global leader in lighting products, systems and services. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips posted 2015 sales of EUR 24.2 billion and employs approximately 105,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries.