Apparently last year's trend toward medical imaging consolidation didn't end with the pop of champagne bottles on New Year's Eve. Delft Instruments of Delft, Netherlands has uncorked the millennium by increasing its stake in Dutch PACS vendor Rogan Medical Systems.
Delft took a 35% stake in the company last year, and on the basis of Rogan's 2000 performance has upped its ante to a 52% majority holding. According to Robert Langenhuysen, founder and CEO of Zeist, Netherlands-based Rogan, the acquisition is part of Delft’s strategy to position itself as a long-term player in the global medical information technology industry.
"Hospitals are often looking for a high level of security, and now that Rogan is, for the majority part, owned by a large, multinational medical company, they can be even more confident than before that our products will be around for many years to come," Langenhuysen said.
Rogan and Delft have been collaborating for the past several years in the areas of marketing and engineering. Delft’s x-ray subsidiary, Oldelft Benelux, has been selling Rogan’s HyperPACS product suite in the Netherlands, with the companies collaborating on seven installations in the past year. The firms have also made recent sales in China, Taiwan, and the U.K.
On the product development side, Rogan engineers worked with their counterparts at Delft's x-ray diagnostics group to create the software for Delft’s Digidelca digital chest system. Rogan has also integrated its archive line with Delft’s radiotherapy subsidiary, Nucletron.
"Because radiotherapy is image-driven, the need for a high-speed archive is critical," Langenhuysen said. He pointed to the debut of Rogan's multiple archive storage system (MASS) technology at last November’s RSNA conference in Chicago as an example of the company's strategy.
"In a DICOM environment, images are typically transmitted sequentially, which means that before a new image can be sent the receiving station must confirm it has received the preceding image in good condition. This causes a practical overhead that results in a virtual bottleneck, significantly limiting the speed, especially in cases of multi-image exams," he said.
Rogan’s MASS technology overcomes this by using a redundant array of inexpensive servers (RAIS), sending images in parallel to the viewing station. Dependent on the configuration of the MASS archive, a RAIS can simultaneously deliver multiple images in parallel.
Langenhuysen played down the Dutch connection between the companies as the catalyst for the investment. "We had interest from many other companies in acquiring a stake in our operation, but our experience with Delft this past year has proven that the companies are a very good fit," he said.
Rogan will continue as an independent business unit, according to corporate representatives. With Delft’s support now fully behind the company, Langenhuysen is planning to expand Rogan's engineering team, as well as its international marketing department.
By Jonathan S. Batchelor
AuntMinnie.com staff writer
January 4, 2001
Related Reading
Rogan adds U.K. customer, August 29, 2000
Rogan adds support for AIT, July 14, 2000
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