SonaCare Medical, the leading developer and manufacturer of High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) Technologies, announces a marketing alliance with Invivo, a business of Royal Philips with over 20-years of history as the pioneer of progressive MRI coils, advanced clinical visualization systems, and MRI-compatible interventional devices.

As part of this strategic partnership, SonaCare Medical has licensed from Invivo their UroNav fusion software, which engineers from both companies have collaborated on to achieve compatibility with the Sonablate planning system.  This creates a seamless process whereby urologists, who have used UroNav to annotate and biopsy targeted prostate tissue, can now easily localize the specific tissue appropriate for ablation directly in the Sonablate software. In addition, SonaCare and Invivo have created a selling relationship that will allow Invivo's extensive network of sales specialists to sell Sonablate directly to almost 200 US-based UroNav facilities.

"This is a major strategic partnership for SonaCare," comments Dr Mark Carol, CEO of SonaCare Medical. "Working together, Invivo and SonaCare are putting in place a broad product portfolio for performing advanced diagnostics, targeted ablation, and systematic patient follow up, as well as a means for delivering that platform to the market. These are very exciting times for both of our organizations and for the physicians and patients they serve around the world."  

"We're excited about this new alliance with SonaCare and the value this will bring to our mutual customers," said Thomas Tynes, senior director, strategy & business development at Invivo Corporation. "Achieving compatibility between our respective products provides Sonablate customers with much easier access to Invivo's integrated portfolio of prostate oncology solutions, including our market-leading UroNav Fusion Biopsy System. We look forward to working together with SonaCare to provide our customers and their patients with innovative clinical solutions throughout the care continuum."

Sonablate is the first device to receive regulatory authorization from the FDA for the focused ultrasound ablation of prostate tissue. Since its introduction over 15 years ago, Sonablate technology has been used around the world on 15,000 patients in over 30 countries, including approximately 4,000 US men who have had this procedure performed outside the US

SonaCare Medical is a world leader in minimally invasive focused ultrasound (HIFU) technologies. SonaCare Medical is committed to developing focused ultrasound related technologies that support precise and innovative procedures for the treatment of a range of medical conditions.