Konica Minolta, Inc. and Boston-based Invicro LLC (“Invicro”) announced that they have concluded an agreement whereby Konica Minolta will acquire Invicro, a leading provider of imaging services and software for research and drug development.
Invicro is a global Contract Research Organization (CRO) providing imaging services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry from early phase discovery through late-phase clinical trials. Invicro built these services on a software and analytics platform enabling streamlined large-scale data analytics across any quantitative biomarker readout.
This is another move by Konica Minolta to accelerate development of its exciting new medical platform to advance precision medicine, discover new therapeutic targets and develop new technologies and therapeutics. Earlier this summer Konica Minolta announced an agreement to purchase genetic testing and analysis company Ambry Genetics Corporation (“Ambry”). Precision medicine is an emerging approach to healthcare where genetic or molecular analysis is used to match patients with the most appropriate treatment for their specific disease. Precision medicine aims to improve a patients’ quality of life and save the healthcare system money by eliminating unnecessary and ineffective treatments, as well as assist pharmaceutical companies lower the cost and time involved in drug discovery.
“We are a quantitative biomarker company. Whether in medical imaging or digital pathology, we seek to distill complex biological measurements into straightforward decision criteria at each stage of pharmaceutical development,” said Dr. Jack Hoppin, Co-Founder and CEO of Invicro. “Konica Minolta is the ideal partner to accelerate the impact of the informatics platform we have developed and deployed over the past decade. The prospect of working with Konica Minolta and their recently acquired Ambry team on the translation of precision medicine innovations from research trials to clinical offerings is truly inspiring. We’re excited to be a part of the new disruption in the industry being assembled by Konica Minolta.”
“Invicro and Konica Minolta have some of the most powerful digital imaging and data management tools available to biomedical researchers and clinicians,” said Kunihiro Koshizuka, Senior Executive Officer, CTO, Konica Minolta, Inc. “The combination of our tools and expertise creates unparalleled cutting-edge capabilities that we believe are unmatched in the business. While research and development expenses are increasing, the number of medicines approved for use is slow and improving the productivity of new drug development is an important issue for the pharmaceutical industry. We look to offer cost-effective solutions to these problems that pharmaceutical companies face through this new platform.”
No changes will be made to Invicro’s management structure, and Dr. Hoppin will remain on as CEO. Invicro’s business operations will continue as usual, including maintaining current staff and facilities as well as the same unwavering commitment to excellent service and scientific collaboration for sponsors while expanding the firm’s translational offering in medical imaging to pathology and genomics by joining Konica Minolta’s precision medicine platform.
