Elekta acquires ultrasound-guided radiation therapy technology from
Resonant Medical Inc
2 June 2010
Elekta has acquired Canadian company Resonant Medical Inc.
(RMI), specialists in image-guided radiation therapy for cancer
treatment.
RMI develops systems for image-guided radiation therapy of soft
tissues using 3-D ultrasound technology. RMI’s integrated software
solutions have been developed in co-operation with leading academic
institutions to improve treatment accuracy for cancer in the
prostate, breast, liver, cervix, uterus, bladder as well as head and
neck.
Elekta’s President and CEO Tomas Puusepp said “This is really
exciting, as it further enhances Elekta’s state-of-the-art solutions
in IGRT, by adding RMI’s leadership in soft tissue visualization and
tracking, especially focused on innovative solutions for breast and
prostate cancer. In addition, given Elekta’s dedication to open
architecture, the technology will be made available to customers
with other vendors’ equipment, making it possible to improve IGRT
processes everywhere.”
Elekta says that RMI’s current products will continue to operate
with linear accelerators from all manufacturers and provide
outstanding image guidance for soft tissue targets, especially in
the breast and pelvic area, without additional X-ray dose or using
invasive implanted markers. They can add high quality IGRT to the
thousands of linacs in use today that do not have integrated imaging
systems, while the soft tissue detail is also highly complementary
to linacs already equipped with cone beam CT or MV (portal) imaging.
In addition, RMI will provide additions to Elekta’s MOSAIQ
treatment planning solutions by displaying soft tissue structures,
not easily seen on X-ray computed tomography but in exact spatial
correlation with these CT images, and offering a suite of automatic
segmentation and contouring tools.
“Elekta has gained an experienced development team with mature,
easy-to-use, stable clinical products. And the established sales and
marketing infrastructure of Elekta is the perfect foundation to
further introduce this valuable technology to the radiation oncology
market. Beyond just today however, the really exciting things are
yet ahead as we start to integrate RMI:s solutions with MOSAIQ and
in the future with our state-of-the art linear accelerators”, said
Elekta’s President and CEO Tomas Puusepp.
RMI was founded in 2000 based on research from McGill University,
Montreal. The CEO of the company, Tony Falco, Ph.D. is one of the
founders and has over 15 years experience in advanced imaging
technology; clinical, product development, supply, and IP creation.
The company has 35 employees, of whom most are based in Montreal,
Canada.
Tony Falco, CEO of RMI, said: “These are exciting times. RMI
provides solutions compatible with all vendors’ simulators and
linear accelerators and together with Elekta’s world-wide customer
network it provides us for the first time with the ability to
improve clinical standards on a global basis. In addition, being
fully integrated with a leading clinical solutions provider like
Elekta makes it possible for us to deliver truly unique integrated
clinical solutions in the future, all of which is important in
improving patient care.”