Israel's imaging industry, led by Elscint, was broken up in the 1990s and the parts were sold to several giant companies, among them Philips and General Electric (GE). Despite the sadness that the flagship of the Israeli medical imaging industry did not survive as an independent company, today we can rejoice at what emerged from the saga.
The giants invested in the centers of excellence in the outskirts of Haifa, brought them new activity, expanded them, and turned them into generators of expertise in medical devices. The Israeli managers and engineers take the know-how they have accumulated at these centers to new companies that they set up. At the same time, Israeli managers have found their places in key positions in the giant corporations, and international managers are exposed to the depth and breadth of Israeli capabilities.
Gene Saragnese, CEO of Philips Imaging Systems, took up his present post a year ago, and recently met the company's Haifa team. But this is not his first visit to Israel. "I have worked in medical devices for 15 years, mostly in the imaging sector. So it worked out that I was in Israel time and again in my previous life at GE, and I even led development teams in Israel," he says.
Saragnese says he is happy with the Philips operation in Haifa and its contribution to the enterprise. "The Haifa division concentrates on CT, but it contributes much more broadly to image processing, image presentation, and work-station improvement. The Israelis have amazing capabilities in innovation and entrepreneurship that have no peer anywhere in the world. They have such deep and rich understanding of technology, and they always want to push the limits of existing technology. After seeing the activity in Israel with my own eyes, I have great respect for it, and you have my commitment that the cooperation will continue."
Philips will not divulge whether it collaborates strategically with other Israeli companies, but Guido Pardo-Roques, general manager of Philips Medical Systems Technologies Ltd. in Haifa, will say that "it is important to know that any group like this of hundreds of engineers in a corporation, based in a particular country, forms collaborations with a whole community, that includes services, raw materials, engineers, and software people from outside, and many reciprocal relationships arise."
Saragnese relates how the global medical devices market underwent a serious crisis in the past few years. "It didn't just stem from the global financial crisis, but also from the realization by governments in developed and developing countries alike, that the population was growing, and that unless there were cost savings and improvements in the economic efficiency of the health system, it would balloon to dimensions that the local economy could not bear. As a result, they demanded of us that we should provide products that were more economically efficient not necessarily cheaper, but such as would enable them, for example, to put more patients through a machine in a given time, or to obtain the diagnosis faster. We are building these capabilities with the help of our Haifa activity as well."
What are the main developments to be expected in the imaging market in the next few years?
Saragnese: "The trends mainly derive from the need I just mentioned, to provide fast diagnosis with higher cost-benefit. This breaks down into three main parts. The first is to put the patient through the device quickly. This is true in the US, where they want to save money because the costs of the health system are crazy, and also true in hospitals in remote places, that want to bring a device and put a lot of patients through it fast. Of course, in a place like that the system has to be very cheap, and that comes under efficiency.
"At the high end, we have to extract more information from existing systems --- and indeed today it is possible to derive more information on the state of tissues and their functioning, beyond information on their anatomical structure, which is the main information that CT currently produces. This is made possible through a combination of contrast media selectively attached to different types of tissue, and use of spectral information sensing the unique light waves from each type of tissue. The Israeli center is very active in this field.
"Apart from this, there is a desire to generate many reports in a short time in order to expedite treatment of patients and to enable doctors to read the information and make a very quick decision. If, for example, a patient comes to the emergency room and we don’t know if he is having a heart attack, it usually takes several hours to bring an expert to read the CT. This can be solved by producing reports that anyone can read and at least obtain from them preliminary information, or simply by transmitting a picture to the doctor wherever he or she happens to be in the hospital."
Reducing the contrast media
Saragnese points out that the Haifa center has developed a product that makes it possible to reduce the amount of contrast media by half, by raising the sensitivity of the device in distinguishing between iodine and calcium. "Philips is a leader in developing techniques for reducing the amount of contrast media," says Pardo-Roques. "This can be done by raising the ability to sense contrast media, and by improving the image processing in order to separate picture and noise better, both of which are strengths of the Israeli center."
Will this mean the development of a whole industry of special diagnostic markers that can attach to particular tissues?
Saragnese: "Yes, I believe that there will be greater use of bio-markers that will enable us to label particular tissues or pathological states and then to image them using CT. Philips will always cooperate with the development of new technologies that will improve human life. I believe that bio-markers will be part of this."
What about CT scanners for particular parts of the body, such as the heart or the arm, that will take up less room and will perhaps also cost less?
"There are several developments, but they are still niche markets. One of the advantages of CT is the ability to answer many different questions with one device. So while it's reasonable to suppose that the niche markets of processing specific organs will develop, this will take more time. Another niche is surgery under CT imaging, but this too is still not a very well developed area."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 30, 2010
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