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Home / Growth & Expansion / Success Stories / INVIA
INVIAINVIA: Advanced Medical Imaging That Pinpoints Heart Problems“If you asked me to pick the premier location for INVIA and the ideal research partner for our medical imaging technology,” said Dr. Edward Ficaro, co-founder of INVIA, “It would be Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan Medical Center.” Dr. Ficaro, along with Dr. James Corbett, launched INVIA in 2005 after more than ten years of collaborative work in Cardiovascular Nuclear Medicine at the University of Michigan. "We see tremendous advantages in building our company in Ann Arbor because there is a strong entrepreneurial infrastructure here with very talented technology and business people. We've maintained our close relationship with The University of Michigan while attracting talented employees from outside the area." The company’s flagship product, Corridor 4DM-SPECT, is already used by more than 5,000 physicians and nuclear cardiology specialists worldwide to perform a wide range of cardiac diagnostics based upon non-invasive imaging techniques. Need Expressed by Physicians Nuclear cardiology is a vitally important medical specialty targeting a major public health problem: coronary artery disease. INVIA’s nuclear cardiology imaging software provides key clinical diagnostic information on coronary blood flow and cardiac function while reducing the use of costly invasive methods and the likelihood of unnecessary interventional procedures in patients. Drs. Corbett and Ficaro developed and automated quantification and display software for cardiac imaging in response to a need for better ways to display and quantify imaging studies of heart blood flow and mechanical function. Nuclear Cardiology assessments now exceed all other nuclear medicine procedures. The number of specialists, as well as the number of procedures, continues to grow. INVIA’s technology has proven to significantly increase effectiveness and productivity of the highly skilled physicians involved in these studies. The Opportunity for INVIA Recognizing a trend in medical device technology toward the added value of complex software and integrated software/hardware systems, INVIA has formed strategic development and distribution partnerships with companies such as Siemens, GE, and Philips as well as a growing network of specialized medical companies. These arrangements provided a strong financial base to allow the company to build its management and technical teams, and pursue business expansion. Looking to the future, INVIA is focused on enhancing Corridor’s core visualization and processing capabilities, developing tools for better workflow and integration in the medical IT environment, and expanding support for other scanning techniques such as multi-detector CT, PET/CT, and MR which are becoming increasingly important in cardiac diagnosis. In addition to its renowned products, INVIA is building its business around the following:
“The motivation for us,” summarizes Dr. Corbett, “is being able to provide medical professionals the tools which enhance their ability to assess and understand patients’ conditions, make more accurate decisions, and have confidence that we are achieving the best possible patient outcomes.” Dr. Ficaro adds that “our expertise and experience span the clinical environment as well as medical imaging technology, allowing us to envision major technical and user-centered development advances. This is an exciting time for INVIA as we have an opportunity to build a great company while making a major contribution to the medical field.” About INVIA’s Founders Dr. James Corbett is responsible for INVIA’s strategic direction, technology assessment, and clinical validation. He is a Professor of Radiology and Internal Medicine and Director of Cardiovascular Nuclear Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical Center. Prior to joining the U of M medical staff, he was Director of Nuclear Cardiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He has written more than 75 peer-reviewed articles for scientific journals as well as many book chapters and review articles. He is a frequent presenter at conferences worldwide. He earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering at the University of North Dakota and an MD degree from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Edward Ficaro directs overall operations of INVIA with primary focus on R&D, product strategy and business development. He teaches nuclear medicine in the Biomedical Engineering program at the University of Michigan and has lectured on Nuclear Cardiology and imaging software at more than 70 institutions and companies around the world. In addition, he has written more than 40 articles in various medical review publications and is a frequent presenter at conferences worldwide. He has BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Michigan.
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