Sectra Expands IT Platform to Include Genomics

Healthcare IT company Sectra announced a new business unit to drive innovation and product development within the area of genomics, extending the company’s enterprise diagnostic IT platform to handle this type of information. This multidisciplinary approach is particularly important in cancer care.

“Genetic information is becoming increasingly important in diagnostics and precision medicine, especially within cancer care. Investing in genomics fits perfectly with our long-term ambition to be the leader in diagnostics information technology and has the potential to significantly impact patient care,” says Torbjörn Kronander, President and CEO of Sectra.

Analysis of genetic information, genomics, is used in healthcare today to better understand and diagnose patients and to predict how an individual patient may react to different treatments. Individualized care based on genetic information is often referred to as precision medicine and is a rapidly growing field.

To leverage the possibilities of precision medicine and to cope with a dramatic increase in the volume of patient data, tomorrow’s IT solutions for diagnostics need to provide healthcare providers with information across multiple specialties, including genomics, along with support for integrated diagnostic workflows.

Sectra and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, based in Philadelphia, have initiated a collaboration to facilitate the development of an effective IT solution.

The new business unit is part of Sectra’s operating area Business Innovation and is led by Fredrik Lysholm, who has a PhD in Bioinformatics. 

The IT solution for genomic information will be part of Sectra’s enterprise imaging solution, which provides a unified strategy for all imaging needs while lowering operational costs. The scalable and modular solution, with a VNA at its core, allows healthcare providers to grow from ology to ology and from enterprise to enterprise.