Philips acquires Belfast based PathXL

Dutch manufacturing giant Philips has acquired Belfast based PathXL, a Queen's University spin out which develops pioneering digital pathology technology.

No financial details relating to the acquisition have been disclosed so far.

The Belfast company was set up in 2004 within the Department of Pathology Informatics at Queens University Belfast by Professor Peter Hamilton and Dr Jim Diamond.

Today the company has around 30 employees and has offices in the UK and USA and distributors across three continents.

Pathology is centred around the examination of patient tissue samples and plays a key role in the diagnosis and treatment of a wide variety of diseases, including cancer.

Russ Granzow, general manager of Philips Digital Pathology Solutions, said the acquisition will complement its existing business operations in the specialised sector.

“With this acquisition, we are accelerating our drive to support global medical institutions in their transition to digitized pathology workflows.

“Together with PathXL we see a unique opportunity to amplify our combined technology leadership positions. We will be able to offer an intelligent and integrated solution that fulfills many needs in computational pathology, education, workflow solutions and image analytics,” Mr Granzow said.