VIDA Diagnostics, a leading developer of quantitative pulmonary imaging software, announced the launch of its new Apollo Software for the evaluation of pulmonary disease including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, and lung cancer, here at the 2011 International Conference of the American Thoracic Society (ATS).

VIDA also announced that Apollo has been installed at leading pulmonary centres for validation and clinical use, including National Jewish Health in Denver, the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, and Temple University Hospital. National Jewish Health is the nation’s leading pulmonary hospital and a principal investigator site for the NIH-sponsored COPDGene study. COPDGene will evaluate 10,000 patients at various stages of COPD with an objective to characterize different forms of the disease through imaging so that effective, personalized treatment strategies can be developed.

“The groundbreaking work of COPDGene recognizes that COPD may not be a single disease, and therefore more directed therapies will be required to effectively treat the disease,” said James D. Crapo, M.D., Professor of Medicine at National Jewish Health and a Principal Investigator of COPDGene. “Quantitative imaging applications, like Apollo, represent an emerging paradigm shift in evaluating patients with COPD, and have the promise to effectively classify COPD by disease subtype, enabling individualized treatment strategies .”

Apollo strengthens VIDA’s groundbreaking solution for lung airway and parenchymal analysis with algorithmic, workflow and dataflow improvements for use in a high volume, time constrained clinical and clinical trial environment. “The increasing prevalence of COPD, and the growing requirement to objectively characterize disease and treatment response, increases the significance of quantitative imaging in evaluating COPD patients,” said Susan A. Wood, Ph.D., president and CEO of VIDA Diagnostics. “The commercial launch of Apollo and installations at marquis pulmonary institutions are important milestones for VIDA.”

The FDA-cleared Apollo pulmonary evaluation software is a comprehensive CT analysis application, generating repeatable measurements of lung structure and function. Apollo advances VIDA’s quantitative approach to pulmonary disease analysis by incorporating lessons learned through multiple academic and clinical trials with its predecessor Pulmonary Workstation 2.0 (PW2).

VIDA Diagnostics develops and commercializes pulmonary software applications, and is an established leader in quantitative image analysis for major lung disease including COPD, emphysema, lung cancer and asthma. VIDA’s vision is to establish lung quantitative CT methods as the standard of care for diagnosis, staging and treatment of major lung disease.