Optiscan Imaging has rounded out a dynamic year with a whopping 66 per cent revenue boost to nearly $1.7 million following the sale of its ViewnVivo research device to an undisclosed major American pharmaceutical company.
The company’s annual report shows sales revenue was also supported by strong demand from multinational healthcare giant Carl Zeiss Meditec, with Optiscan’s confocal imaging technology a primary imaging component of the Zeiss CONVIVO, used widely in the field of neurosurgery.
The sale of the ViewnVivo platform to the large American pharmaceutical company came after significant external benchmarking and testing of our platform compared to alternative imaging devices, and their decision to purchase our platform is a ringing endorsement of the power of our technology compared to others. Additionally, this initial sale has the potential to lead to others across their various drug development and disease model laboratories not only in the US but other jurisdictions. Optiscan Imaging managing director and chief executive officer Dr Camile Farah
The company is deep in the throes of developing a new standard of care in digital pathology and precision surgery, with its biopsy-free, slide-free, non-invasive, live single-cell medical imaging technology.
Optiscan’s patented imaging technology houses miniaturised componentry to create a pen-sized digital microscope that offers the power of real-time 3D single-cell imaging – all in the palm of the operator’s hand.
The conventional biopsy approach currently favoured by the medical profession is time-consuming for health providers, uncomfortable for patients and operationally-challenging for anyone living in rural and remote areas. Optiscan believes its imaging technology presents a unique opportunity to establish a new standard of digital pathology across the world.
The company is also pioneering digital pathology platforms to enable real-time collaboration between surgeons and pathologists, recently passing its proof-of-concept stage amid plans for the software to be completed by the end of next year.
Management has inked an exclusive collaboration with Canadian software developer Prolucid Technologies to develop artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms using its medical images to enable immediate clinical decision-making. The cutting-edge innovative project will help clinicians provide the best possible patient outcomes through the earlier detection, diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
“Our recent announcement around the significant progress made with our telepathology platform is exciting news for us and users of our technology, as the telepathology portal will bring pathologists closer to clinicians and surgeons bridging the gap of time, distance and accuracy in clinical diagnosis and surgical intervention,” Dr Farah said.
“Bringing pathologists’ interpretive skills of cancer and other diseases into the operating theatre will add enormous value to surgeons and provide better outcomes for patients. Equally, it has the potential to significantly reduce costs for hospitals and payors.”
Optiscan’s partnership with the Canadian software developer aims to enhance the clinical capability of its technology, with the goal of developing a Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) application that will support image collection, processing and tissue analytics.
Prolucid says one of the challenges with SaMD solutions is identifying the appropriate infrastructure to build data-rich, commercially-viable solutions. However, it believes Optiscan’s platform is technologically-compatible, highly-secure and quickly-scalable across health systems.
Optiscan is up to its elbows in reviewing feedback from the powerful United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the use of its “InVivage” imaging device for oral cancer screening, incorporating the findings towards improving the device. Obtaining the holy-grail FDA endorsement will have it hurtling closer to breaking into that nation’s lucrative health-care market.
With the lion’s share of a recent $16.7 million capital raise ringing in the till, Optiscan’s mission to enhance its state-of-the-art medical imaging technology and progress development of its AI and telepathology capabilities, is all but assured. To top that up with an income stream from the sale of its curiously-clever medical devices, is the icing on the top.
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