- MeVis Visia™ Computer-Aided Detection (CAD) assists medical practitioners in the early diagnosis of lung cancer
- Genuine medical added value thanks to improved diagnostics and optimized work flows
- New marketing partnership with Invivo Corp., a subsidiary company of Philips Healthcare
Bremen, October 20, 2008 - MeVis Medical Solutions AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBFE4), a specialist in software for image-based medicine, has today announced the market launch by its US subsidiary MeVis Medical Solutions, Inc. of a new software solution for lung diagnostics in multi-slice computed tomography scans. With Visia™, MeVis is broadening its range of specialized software solutions for the improved early detection and diagnosis of common cancer illnesses.
"With Visia™, MeVis is now also offering medical practitioners highly specialized software to assist in the early diagnosis of lung cancer, one of the world’s most frequent types of cancer, which often leads to death," says Dr. Carl J.G. Evertsz, CEO of MeVis Medical Solutions AG. "In this way, we are able to further reinforce our position as an independent producer of high-quality disease-oriented software solutions for combating cancer."
The software, which has already been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States and the Medical Devices Bureau of Health Canada, automatically detects so-called solitary pulmonary nodules, which may be an early indication of lung cancer. Visia™ also helps the radiologist by providing an additional function known as AutoPoint™, which allows the course of the illness and the effect of the therapy to be reliably monitored. In addition, the software can automatically detect embolism caused by an object blocking the arteries of the lung thanks to an optional feature called Pulmonary Artery Patency Exam (PE™).
"We are pleased to report that Visia™ has met with an extremely favorable response on the part of our OEM partners as well as clinical end-users during the preliminary phase of the market launch," says Thomas E. Tynes, President & CEO of MeVis Medical Solutions, Inc. and CMO of MeVis Medical Solutions AG. "Radiologists particularly welcome the proven clinical performance of Visia™ in the automatic detection, evaluation and follow-up of pulmonary nodules and the ability to effortlessly integrate the system in existing IT environments to improve their clinical/medical workflows."
Coinciding with the market launch of Visia™, the Philips Healthcare subsidiary company Invivo Corp. has been gained as a new sales and marketing partner. Invivo is one of MeVis Medical Solutions’ main industry partners. Moreover, MeVis Medical Solutions and Invivo jointly developed the DynaCAD® software solution for breast diagnosis and biopsies during MRT scans, which is currently being supplemented with the addition of innovative new applications.
Says Tynes: "We are pleased to expand our partnership with Invivo and leverage our collective sales & marketing resources to further expand the distribution of this exciting and innovative new product. Due to the high medical importance of this application, we are actively pursuing additional global distribution possibilities and we plan to systematically make use of these. For this reason, we have decided for the first time to adopt a new brand name for this product to highlight our position as an independent producer of high-quality disease-oriented software solutions to clinical end-users as well."
The software solution originates from the computed tomography business acquired from the Hologic subsidiary R2 Technology, Inc. in April. The purchase also included rights to the R2 Technology expertise, intellectual property, patents, source codes etc., and also existing industry partnerships.
"Following on from the preliminary sales achieved in the third quarter from the industry partnerships acquired from R2, we expect Visia™ business to make a notable contribution to consolidated sales in the upcoming quarters," says Dr. Olaf Sieker, CFO of MeVis Medical Solutions.