DUTCH medical technology company Philips has paid an undisclosed sum to acquire Belfast-based digital imaging analysis and software company Path XL.
Founded as i-Path in 2004 within the Department of Pathology Informatics at Queen's University by Professor Peter Hamilton and Dr Jim Diamond, PathXL has grown into a global pioneer in the use of technology to analyse cancerous cells.
Its lucrative technology is now seen as having a multitude of potential applications across the life, health and biological sectors.
In Path XL's field of digital pathology, tissue samples are scanned and stored in computer files so they can be summoned by doctors for instant, computer-assisted analysis or repeatedly reviewed.
Philips chief executive Frans van Houten said: "We're acquiring a company that has deep clinical knowledge."
He said that Philips' digital pathology business was doubling every year and would pass the tens of millions of euros this year.
"The computer can do a much better job than the human eye, as it is much more systematic in analysing tissues," Van Houten added.
He believes PathXL’s image analysis and tissue pathology software will complement the Philips offering and help expand the business’ leadership in this fast-growing field.
“With this acquisition, we are accelerating our drive to support global medical institutions in their transition to digitised 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.”
Last year PathXL - which has 30 employees at offices in the UK and USA and distributors across three continents - revealed that it was investing £3.6m to drive international sales of its award-winning tumour detection software TissueMark, creating 32 highly skilled jobs by 2018.
At the time its chief executive Des Speed said: “Our ultimate aim is to become world famous for contributing something really meaningful to the field of digital pathology."
Path XL has enjoyed its most successful trading year ever in 2015/16, when it revealed a margin growth of 70 per cent as a result of being selected by 21 new customers, representing over 6,000 new users of its digital pathology software.
It also reported a large expansion of user licences across its existing customer base as institutions expand their digital pathology capacity to meet internal demand for imaging and analysis.
This represented the single largest number of new customer accounts within a 12-month period for the company, and brings the overall number of users to approximately 50,000 worldwide.
This year has also seen PathXL ranked in the top 50 fastest growing technology firms in Ireland by Deloitte for the fourth consecutive year and sole recipient of the new Deloitte Research & Development award.
