ABB opened its first global healthcare research hub on the Texas Medical Center (TMC) campus, in Houston, Texas – showcasing a number of concept technologies, including a mobile YuMi® robot, which will be designed to assist medical and laboratory staff with laboratory and logistics tasks in hospitals.

The dual-arm mobile YuMi® will be able to sense and navigate its way around its human co-workers autonomously, while learning to find different routes from one location to another. It has the potential to undertake a wide range of repetitive and time-consuming activities, including preparation of medicines, loading and unloading centrifuges, pipetting and handling liquids and picking up and sorting test tubes.

The mobile YuMi®could also be used in hospitals for a wide variety of logistics roles. YuMi® may be able to dispense medicines, transport them to where they are needed in hospitals, bring medical supplies to hospital staff and bed linen direct to patients’ bedrooms.

At TMC Innovation Institute, ABB will develop robots that are able to carry out repetitive, delicate and mundane processes, leaving highly skilled medical and laboratory staff free to undertake more valuable roles and ultimately treat more patients. ABB analysis shows that repetitive tasks could be completed up to 50 per cent faster with automation, compared to current manual processes, with the added benefit that robots can work 24 hours a day.

“The healthcare sector is undergoing significant transformation as the diagnosis and treatment of disease advances, while coping with an aging population, increasing costs and a growing worldwide shortage of medical staff. With our new healthcare research and development hub at TMC we are aiming to develop answers to these challenges – together with the best minds in academia, science and medicine,” said Sami Atiya, President of ABB’s Robotics and Discrete Automation business. “Our experience in industrial and collaborative robotics will give us a strong basis to be able to adapt flexible automation to the healthcare sector. Together with our partners at TMC, we will develop cutting-edge robotics solutions. We are working to reduce the number of manual procedures performed by medical staff, improve the accuracy of laboratory work and enhance patient satisfaction and ultimately patient safety.”

Other technologies showcased by ABB at the Healthcare Research Hub include YuMi® robots that could aid in centrifuge tending and test tube handling systems, and an IRB 1200 robot that could execute liquid transfers in a pipetting application. All are common medical laboratory tasks that robotic automation may be able to support by combining consistent performance with a level of flexibility and continuous operation that could increase throughput and quality while minimizing costs.

TMC is the largest medical city in the world with world-class collaborative research resources, including some of the world’s leading companies and hospitals. ABB’s new 5,300 sq ft (500m2) Healthcare Hub will be housed at the TMC Innovation Institute, a state-of-the-art hub that fosters collaboration of medicine and cutting-edge technology, connecting start-ups with pioneers in academia and leading technology companies in order to accelerate the development and prototyping of breakthrough medical technology.

“Texas Medical Center, TMC Innovation, and the entire TMC network of member institutions are pleased to welcome ABB on the occasion of its first foray into the healthcare space with this incredible and unprecedented new robotics facility,” emphasized Bill McKeon, President & CEO of Texas Medical Center. He added, “A primary goal across TMC – the largest medical city in the world – is to make research happen faster while simultaneously cutting costs in order to create more rapid and cost-effective solutions for patients who are in desperate need of treatment. ABB’s move into the heart of the Texas Medical Center campus with this first-of-its-kind R&D facility for creating robotics solutions in healthcare will set a new course for advancements in medicine and establish TMC as the nexus for a new kind of synergistic partnership that will shape the future of healthcare for clinicians, researchers, and patients alike.”

Robotic automation in the healthcare sector offers significant opportunity for future growth. According to internal ABB research, the global market is estimated to reach nearly 60,000 non-surgical medical robots by 2025, a fourfold increase from 2018.

ABB is a technology leader that is driving the digital transformation of industries. With a history of innovation spanning more than 130 years, ABB has four customer-focused, globally leading businesses: Electrification, Industrial Automation, Motion, and Robotics & Discrete Automation, supported by the ABB Ability™ digital platform. ABB’s Power Grids business will be divested to Hitachi in 2020. ABB operates in more than 100 countries with about 147,000 employees. www.abb.com

ABB Robotics is a pioneer in industrial and collaborative robots and advanced digital services. As one of the world’s leading robotics suppliers, we are active in 53 countries and over 100 locations and have shipped over 400,000 robot solutions for a diverse range of industries and applications. We help our customers to improve flexibility, efficiency, safety and reliability, while moving towards the connected and collaborative factory of the future. www.abb.com/robotics

TMC INNOVATION
Texas Medical Center (TMC)—the largest medical city in the world—is at the forefront of advancing life sciences. Home to the brightest minds in medicine, TMC nurtures cross-institutional collaboration, creativity, and innovation among its 106,000-plus employees. With a campus of more than 50 million square feet, TMC annually hosts 10 million patients, performs over 180,000 surgeries, conducts over 750,000 ER visits, performs close to 14,000 heart surgeries, and delivers over 25,000 babies. Beyond patient care, TMC is pushing the boundaries of clinical research across its extensive network of partner institutions on a daily basis, pioneering effective health policy solutions to address the complex health care issues of today, and cultivating cutting-edge digital health applications and medical devices.

Perspectum, the leading provider of diagnostic solutions for metabolic disease and cancer, is partnering Precious Medical, a premier imaging centre in Singapore, following a successful launch event this week.

Chronic liver disease is a ‘silent’ and growing epidemic. Increasing levels of obesity and diabetes have driven a rise in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), estimated to affect 40% of Singaporeans. NAFLD also appears to affect Asians at a lower BMI compared to Westerners. Most patients may not experience symptoms until the advanced, irreversible stages. If liver disease is diagnosed early, progression can be limited, reducing the need for expensive interventions.

Dr William Chong, director of Precious Medical Centre says, “The development of accurate methods to quantify chronic liver disease will help improve the quality of care for our patients. We are proud to be the first to offer LiverMultiScan clinically in Asia. We hope that this partnership will also create more awareness and people will consider liver checks as an integral part of their health screening — the earlier the diagnosis, the greater the probability of recovery.”

“We are excited to bring our innovations to the clinics in Asia — providing scalable, patient-centric solutions to cater to the growing epidemic.” shared Sir Michael Brady, Chairman of Perspectum.

GE Healthcare and Theragnostics have entered into a global commercial partnership for a new Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) PET/CT imaging agent. Theragnostics will lead the development of the tracer, GalliProst, while GE Healthcare will lead all pre-approval commercial preparations and as and when approval is received, all subsequent commercial and distribution activities.

Today, prostate cancer is the fourth largest cancer type accounting for just over 1.2 million new cases and over 350,000 fatalities around the globe in 2018. The diagnostic workflow for detecting prostate cancer starts through a blood test or biopsy, after which patients are typically referred for PET/CT imaging so that radiologists can see their tumour, lymph nodes and any metastasis in order to decide the appropriate course of treatment. The ‘heatmap’ style image enabled by the new tracer shows the precise location and intensity of PSMA, which is expressed on the surface of prostate cancer cells.

Theragnostics has reported data from a phase two clinical study which met its primary and secondary endpoints, demonstrating that one third of newly diagnosed prostate cancer patients – and over 50% of patients with biochemically recurrent disease – had their treatment plans modified as a result of a GalliProst scan. The change in patient management increased to 75% in a post-radical radiotherapy setting.

“We are excited to partner with Theragnostics on GalliProst to give vital insights into prostate cancer,” said Sanka Thiru, Global Product Leader, Molecular Imaging Oncology in GE Healthcare’s Pharmaceutical Diagnostics business. “We believe that this partnership enables both parties to leverage each other’s key areas of expertise in order to accelerate the development of GalliProst and ultimately improve patient care.”

Greg Mullen, CEO of Theragnostics added: “This agreement is validation of the potential for our novel prostate cancer Gallium-68 (68Ga) diagnostic tracer, GalliProst which can benefit the treatment of prostate cancer patients around the globe. We are very pleased to sign our second agreement with GE Healthcare following our agreement last year for a diagnostic tracer for imaging kidney function and scarring.”

Both GE Healthcare and Theragnostics will be attending the upcoming European Association of Nuclear Medicine 2019 Congress (EANM) in Barcelona on October 12-16.

About GE Healthcare:
GE Healthcare is the $19.8 billion healthcare business of GE. As a leading provider of medical imaging, monitoring, biomanufacturing, and cell and gene therapy technologies, GE Healthcare enables precision health in diagnostics, therapeutics and monitoring through intelligent devices, data analytics, applications and services. With over 100 years of experience in the healthcare industry and more than 50,000 employees globally, the company helps improve outcomes more efficiently for patients, healthcare providers, researchers and life sciences companies around the world. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and The Pulse for latest news, or visit our website https://corporate.gehealthcare.com/ for more information.

About Theragnostics:
Theragnostics, a private biotech company based in UK and US, is developing innovative radiopharmaceuticals to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment. It has developed a radiopharmaceutical technology platform that allows for diagnostic tools as well as therapeutic solutions to inform clinical management, guide care and treat cancer patients in areas of unmet medical need. Three diagnostic imaging agents have been successfully developed. The first radiopharmaceutical therapy, rPARP inhibitor THG-009 (I-123 labelled PARPi) is expected to enter clinical development in 2020. Theragnostics is led by recognized experts in the clinical development and commercialization of innovative diagnostic and therapeutic nuclear medicine products. For more information, visit www.theragnostics.com

International medical imaging IT and cybersecurity company Sectra will install its award-winning PACS at the 7 hospitals and 50 plus outpatient clinics that comprise Marshfield Clinic Health System in Wisconsin. The Sectra solution will provide consolidation of all radiology images on a single platform and allow for efficient remote reading by radiologists.

Marshfield Clinic Health System is the largest private group medical practice in Wisconsin with more than 1,200 providers operating out of 50 locations.

“I am very pleased to welcome Marshfield Clinic as a customer. Sectra’s solution is designed for health systems with geographically dispersed locations like Marshfield. The images will follow the patients and the physicians will have easy access to them, regardless of their physical location,” says Mikael Anden, President of Sectra in the U.S.

In addition to Sectra PACS for diagnostic radiology, the multi-year contract signed in September will include Sectra Breast Imaging PACS for mammography workflow, advanced visualization tools and business analytics.

Sectra PACS is optimized for high production environments and supports the goal of shortened report turnaround times, enhanced result distribution workflows, and improved communication between departments. It is a part of Sectra’s enterprise imaging offering, which provides a unified strategy for all imaging needs.

Experience Sectra’s solution at RSNA
Visit Sectra in booth #6113 at RSNA 2019 to learn more about the complete enterprise imaging offering, with Sectra VNA and our Best-in-KLAS PACS for radiology, pathology and cardiology at its core. Explore how the solutions and latest innovations support radiologists in becoming more efficient and accomplishing more. For RSNA highlights and to book a demo, please visit medical.sectra.com/rsna.

About Sectra
Sectra assists hospitals throughout the world to enhance the efficiency of care, and authorities and defense forces in Europe to protect society’s most sensitive information. Thereby, Sectra contributes to a healthier and safer society. The company was founded in 1978, has its head office in Linköping, Sweden, with direct sales in 19 countries, and operates through partners worldwide. Sales in the 2018/2019 fiscal year totaled SEK 1,413 million. The Sectra share is quoted on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange. For more information, visit sectra.com/.

Developed by the Nonwovens Innovation and Research Institute (NIRI) and engineered to help prevent the spread of healthcare associated infections, Surfaceskinsantibacterial door push pad and pull handle technology received the Innovation Award at this year’s Research, Innovation & Science for Engineered Fabrics (RISE®) Conference, adding to a raft of awards already won for the globally-patented healthcare technology.

Surfaceskins came about through the observation that, while gel dispensers in hospitals and medical waiting areas make hands clean, as soon as your hands touch a dirty door handle or push plate you can become contaminated with germs left by previous users. An estimated 80% of all infections are known to be transmitted by hand contact and compliance with the use of gel dispensers by healthcare workers can be lower than 30%. Surfaceskins work in conjunction with gel dispensers and hand washing, as a vital infection control measure designed to complement existing hand hygiene practices and protocols, breaking the transmission chain that contributes – within the USA alone – to 1.8 million Healthcare Associated Infections (HCAIs) per annum, at an estimated cost of US$28 – 45 billion, and 99,000 deaths each year.

Surfaceskins employs a uniquely designed nonwoven-film system design to store, distribute and dispense standard alcohol gels to ensure all the product surface is active. The product comprises both vertically-lapped (v-lap) and spunbond nonwovens; the v-lap material acts as a reservoir for the gel, whilst the spunbond performs an ADL (acquisition distribution layer) function, meaning the liquid gel is still available at the top of the pushpad by the end of the product lifespan. The perforated film top sheet and micro-valves in the top sheet open and close with pressure, ensuring the gel doesn’t evaporate.The combination of technical performance and the relatively low cost of nonwovens makes Surfaceskins an inexpensive, commercially-viable consumable product ideal for hospitals, SCBU’s, HDU’s, ICU’s, elderly wards, food preparation, washroom, toilet, offices and other high risk traffic areas.

Seven years in development, the final Surfaceskins product won over £3 million in pre-orders, before launching last year. Prior to winning the RISE Innovation Award, Surfaceskins infection control technology won numerous innovation awards including Medilink Innovation in Healthcare Award; Shell LiveWIRE Grand Ideas Award, and Venturefest Innovation Showcase Award as well as being nominated for IDEA19 Achievement Award and shortlisted for The Spectator Disruptor of the Year Awards.

About NIRI:
Spun out of University of Leeds in 2005 to focus on applied research, industrial innovation and project development in nonwovens, NIRI employs more than 20 multidisciplinary personnel and has recently invested significantly in new facilities including: a textile and fibre engineering laboratory; industrial specification nonwoven plant, and comprehensive testing and analysis facilities. NIRI has successfully delivered over 450 projects for more than 200 clients, worldwide.

About Surfaceskins Limited:
The company was born form a collaboration between the textile and product and process development specialists at NIRI and a team of industrial design consultants, Simon Scott-Harden (ZELOcreative) and Adam Walker (Lensnectar).  The Surfaceskins range of products has been developed by a team combining experienced business acumen, technical expertise and healthcare sector knowledge.