TOKYO, Japan and BOSTON, Mass., November 13, 2012—Canon Inc. and Canon U.S.A., Inc. announced today that the latter has entered into respective collaborative research agreements with Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) to develop biomedical optical imaging and medical robotics technologies, among other initiatives. The overall goal of the agreements is to develop and commercialize unique medical devices for a variety of applications including detection of cardiovascular disease, brain functional imaging, robotics-assisted neurosurgery and miniature endoscopy. Canon U.S.A. is working in conjunction with its parent, Canon Inc., on this endeavor.
This collaboration involves technology experts from the MGH Wellman Center for Photomedicine, MGH Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, MGH Pathology Imaging and Communication Technology (PICT) Center, BWH National Center for Image Guided Therapy and BWH Center for Image-based Phenotyping. Together with the support of research and development staff from Canon U.S.A. and Canon Inc., they will work towards a common vision of pairing optics with pioneering diagnosis.
"Canon is very excited to be collaborating with these world-class hospitals to help solve clinical challenges facing healthcare communities worldwide," said Dr. Toshiaki Ikoma, executive vice president and chief technology officer, Canon Inc. "Canon is committed to enhancing our worldwide R&D efforts while emphasizing our medical imaging through the creation of the Healthcare Optics Research Laboratory in Boston. The mission of the new laboratory is to research, develop, and facilitate the commercialization of unique medical devices. While we are in the very early stages of our research, we look forward to a long affiliation with one another to help ensure the results of our clinical findings are implemented in the future."
"These agreements are quite different from the usual academic-industrial agreements because we will be working together to bring new MGH- and BWH-invented technologies from their current, very early stage, through prototype and scale-up, to our ultimate goals of FDA approval and clinical adoption," noted Dr. Frances Toneguzzo, executive director of the Office of Research Ventures & Licensing that manages innovations developed at MGH and BWH. "Together the parties will be dedicated to developing this technology from its basic scientific principles all the way to initial prototyping within the biological research and clinical environments with the ultimate goal of bringing these products to the patient."
