EMvision announces collaboration with Keysight Technologies to bring portable brain scanner to the market

EMvision Medical Devices has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Keysight Technologies Malaysia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Keysight Technologies to bring a portable brain scanner to the market.

The partnership is between Keysight Technologies, a technology company that develops breakthrough electronics measurement equipment and software solutions, and EMvision Medical Devices, an innovative, medical device company.

EMvision is developing a transportable brain-scanner for the rapid assessment of stroke and brain injury and hopes this agreement will enable them to co-develop a critical hardware component that could further reduce the size of EMvision’s devices and bring them to market quicker.  

The agreement was signed by the two organisations during a ceremony located at Keysight’s Malaysian innovation and research and development hub. As a result, the organisations plan now to collaborate on a new generation of personalised, highly integrated and high-performance Vector Network Analyser (VNA) solutions for the healthcare sector.

VNAs allow for the accurate measurement of signals transmitted and received by EMvision’s brain scanner. Currently, EMvision utilises standard VNAs that are used across multiple industries outside of healthcare.

The strategic collaboration plan is to reduce the overall size of the brain scanner system in order to offer greater compatibility in first responder applications. The organisations plan to achieve this by focusing on engineering the custom healthcare focused VNA solution into a highly integrated and compact form.

Ron Weinberger, CEO of EMvision said: “Integrating key components and reducing the size of our brain scanner system will offer greater point of care compatibility in hospitals, primary care facilities, ambulances, helicopters and other first responder applications, which can all face space, cost and weight limitations.”

Weinberger believes that the collaboration with Keysight will greatly assist EMvision in offering a device that could dramatically improve patient outcomes within the first ‘Golden Hour’ by bringing stroke decision support and monitoring to the patient, regardless of where they are.

Currently, diagnosing most stroke cases is a static procedure carried out in hospitals using large and expensive immovable imaging equipment. Timely diagnosis and treatment in the first 60 minutes after stroke onset can mean the difference between permanent disability or death, and a positive recovery.

Weinberger continues: “We want to radically transform access to early pre-hospital and beside imaging, and with the help of Keysight’s measurement technology experience and solutions, our future devices could potentially be as portable and ubiquitous as defibrillators.

“The ability to carry out diagnostic tests rapidly and frequently will allow serious conditions and trends to be identified more quickly. Our aim is to minimise treatment delays and save lives. Keysight’s leading VNA solutions and deep technical experience will help us accelerate the commercialisation of our breakthrough point-of-care imaging devices.”

Ee Huei Sin, vice president and general manager, Keysight’s general electronics measurement solutions business segment states: “By leveraging our decades of leadership in RF, microwave and millimetre-wave measurement sciences, Keysight is well-positioned to provide continuous test innovations and integrated solutions to ensure our customers are first to market.

“We look forward to collaborating with EMvision to enable and enhance innovative medical imaging solutions.”

Currently, EMvision is in an advanced stage of clinical brain scanner device development and will run a pilot clinical trial at Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital in the second half of 2019. This study will aim to collect data from patients with diagnosed ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke, with confirmatory CT or MRI images.