Neurosurgical Company Synaptive Medical Buys ClearCanvas

Toronto, Canada-based Synaptive Medical, which makes neurosurgery medical products, has acquired ClearCanvas Inc., a developer of imaging informatics solutions. ClearCanvas’ comprehensive image storage and visualization platform has been the architectural backbone for Synaptive Medical’s Brightmatter suite of products, including Brightmatter Plan, which offers visualization of 3-D tractography in the brain, meant to establish a minimally disruptive surgical pathway.

“We bought ClearCanvas because their innovative and extensible medical imaging platforms already form the basis of a number of Synaptive products,” said Cameron Piron, president of Synaptive. “It makes strategic sense to bring such an essential component of our products in-house, with the added benefit of significantly augmenting our team with ClearCanvas’ pool of talent and expertise.”

In the coming months, ClearCanvas’ next generation research platform, Imagedrive, will be integrated to facilitate tracking vast amounts of intraoperative data and correlating that data with patient outcomes. Imagedrive stores research data, such as DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine standard) and non-DICOM objects, and indexes their content so they can be searched and mined. Users can organize that data however they like using folders and tags. DICOM images can also be de-identified with Imagedrive’s de-identification engine, ensuring that protected health information is never compromised. Like all ClearCanvas products, Imagedrive is extensible, so it can be the foundation for new functionalities added later.

“It is extremely gratifying and affirming to see the innovative and exciting ways in which Synaptive continues to build on top of the ClearCanvas platform to advance neurosurgery,” said Norman Young, founder of ClearCanvas. “I very much look forward to being a part of an extraordinarily talented team whose innovations will profoundly change the lives of people everywhere.”