Ventana and EMC join forces to take digital pathology into the world of Big Data

TUCSON, Ariz., Sept. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Ventana Medical Systems, Inc. (Ventana), a member of the Roche Group, today announced that it has entered into an agreement with data storage and IT infrastructure industry leader EMC Corporation (EMC) to offer a highly scalable and flexible  solution to store and archive medical images as part of the VENTANA  digital pathology solution for anatomical pathology labs.

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Today's pathologists increasingly rely on digital images scanned from patient slides, and those images must be of the highest possible resolution. The VENTANA iScan family of slide scanners offers enhanced image resolution and throughput, which in turn requires significant increases in system storage capacity. Ventana turned to IT industry leader EMC to deliver secure, easy to manage, high-capacity storage for its digital pathology solution which runs on VENTANA Virtuoso image and workflow management software.

"This agreement represents  the combination of best-in-class technologies and expertise from two industry leaders, further increasing the value we can provide to customers," says Steve Burnell, PhD, digital pathology and workflow lifecycle leader at Ventana Medical Systems, Inc."EMC's sophisticated analysis of our customers' storage needs, their reputation for quality, and continuous innovation, plus their global service capabilities mean that pathology labs all over the world can focus on analyzing patient slides, not managing storage capacity and archiving."

A turnkey scanning and storage solution for labs of all sizes

As digital pathology becomes the global standard, pathology labs of all sizes require an overall medical imaging storage solution that is cost-effective, flexible, secure, and scalable. Ventana has collaborated with EMC to optimize digital pathology storage configurations that will deliver the best performance and price for its wide range of global customers.

"By embedding EMC's industry-leading VNX®unified storage and information management products within the VENTANA Virtuoso software, Ventana, as part of the Roche family of healthcare solutions, is providing their customers with a more advanced, scalable and integrated digital imaging solution. We are pleased to be working so closely with a leading research-focused healthcare company in an effort to help lab technicians and doctors around the world gain access to the most innovative technology to more effectively analyze human tissue as a means of diagnosing and treating life-threatening disease."
—Tony Wood, General Manager, OEM Solutions, EMC Corporation

Technology excellence, optimized
VENTANA Virtuoso image and workflow management software is a web-based application that delivers a complete digital pathology workflow solution (now with Barco high-grade image quality displays) and offers pathologists a powerful, flexible solution to simplify their workflow and collaboration with colleagues while maximizing efficiency, patient safety and data security.

EMC is a global leader in enabling businesses to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. The company's solutions for Ventana include the EMC VNXe® unified storage platform, EMC Unisphere® unified storage management, and EMC DiskXtender® for strategic placement and retrieval of images. As a result, the VENTANA digital pathology solution can support higher data storage capacities (up to 43 terabytes), provide a faster, more automated and secure approach to archiving, and easily scale as customers' needs increase.    

Learn more about EMC's VNXe storage platform

Ventana plans to launch the newly integrated solution in North America, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa in Q4 of 2013.

About Ventana Medical Systems, Inc.

Ventana Medical Systems, Inc. ("VMSI") (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY), a member of the Roche Group, innovates and manufactures instruments and reagents that automate tissue processing and slide staining for cancer diagnostics. VENTANA solutions are used in clinical histology and drug development research laboratories worldwide. The company's intuitive, integrated staining, workflow management platforms, and digital pathology solutions optimize laboratory efficiencies to reduce errors, support diagnosis and inform treatment decisions for anatomic pathology professionals. Together with Roche, VMSI is driving Personalized Healthcare through accelerated drug discovery and the development of "companion diagnostics" to identify the patients most likely to respond favorably to specific therapies.

VENTANA, the VENTANA logo, ISCAN and VIRTUOSO are trademarks of Roche.

Visit www.ventana.com to learn more.

VMSI Media Relations
Jacqueline Bucher
Senior Director, Corporate Communications
Phone: 520-877-7288
e-mail: Jacquie Bucher

SOURCE Ventana Medical Systems, Inc.