Mar 31 2010
CAE Healthcare, a division of CAE (NYSE:CAE) (TSX:CAE), and Immersion (NASDAQ:IMMR), a leading innovator of haptic (touch feedback) technology, today announced that CAE Healthcare has acquired part of Immersion’s medical simulation business unit.
Three product lines are part of the acquisition and will form the core offerings of CAE Healthcare’s newly established surgical simulation division.
The acquisition of Immersion’s assets supports CAE Healthcare’s strategy to provide a full range of best-in-class medical education and simulation solutions across a worldwide market. The agreement includes Immersion’s Endoscopy AccuTouchTM, Laparoscopy Virtual Reality (VR), and Endovascular CathLab VR simulators. These surgical simulators allow surgeons to practice procedures and acquire skills to perform minimally invasive surgeries, including bronchoscopies, upper and lower gastrointestinal endoscopies and cardiac valve replacements. More than 500 of these systems have been installed worldwide. In addition, Immersion will grant CAE Healthcare a non-exclusive worldwide license for the TouchSenseTM haptic technology in medical training applications.
“We are committed to delivering the best training solutions to improve patient safety, and the acquisition of Immersion’s surgical training systems will accelerate our entry in the growing surgical simulation market,” said Guillaume Hervé, President of CAE Healthcare. “We welcome the Immersion team, and look forward to providing our new customers with continuous service support. By combining the expertise of the Immersion team with CAE’s more than six decades of modelling, simulation and training experience, we intend to offer a complete solution for surgical simulation.”
Immersion's medical line of business designs, manufactures, and markets computer-based virtual reality simulation training systems with realistic touch feedback that allows clinicians and students to practice and improve minimally invasive surgical skills in an environment that poses no risk to patients. The advanced haptics are fundamental in providing an unequalled learning experience as they provide simulation on how a procedure or exercise actually feels. The medical business unit includes more than 30 employees in North America, a network of surgical subject matter experts, as well as 14 distributors and sales offices in Europe, Asia Pacific and South America.
“We are proud of the pioneering work that we have accomplished in the surgical simulation market,” said Victor Viegas, Interim CEO of Immersion. “We believe that CAE Healthcare provides a great opportunity for our medical employees, customers, and distributors to take our simulation business forward. At Immersion, we will focus our core strategy on what we do best – building reference designs and licensing TouchSense haptics solutions to all markets, including healthcare. We welcome CAE Healthcare as a new customer as we continue to capitalize on the medical market through our licensing model.”
Source: http://www.immersion.com