GE Healthcare acquires surgical navigation assets of Cbyon

GE Healthcare (formerly GE Medical Systems) is expanding in the area of specialized surgical navigation technology.

The company on Tuesday announced its acquisition of Cbyon Inc.'s specialized surgical navigation portfolio, as well as intellectual property (IP) for spine, ear, nose and throat and neurosurgery, including exclusive IP licensing rights from Stanford University.

The terms of the GE-Cbyon agreement were not disclosed.

GE currently offers its InstaTrak surgical navigation system, which is designed to allow doctors to visualize the position of surgical instruments inside the body in real-time without a large incision in the patient. The InstaTrak system includes specialized software applications for navigation, patented electromagnetic (EM) tracking technologies, and images obtained from an MRI, CT or x-ray exam that build a 3D model of the patient's anatomy. The model guides doctors during minimally-invasive procedures and helps surgeons avoid critical structures, such as nerves and blood vessels.

Lewis Dudley, GE's general manager of surgery, said that by integrating Cbyon's virtual endoscopy and surgical perspective volume rendering features, with GE's EM tracking technology, the combined technologies "can help treat a broader range of medical conditions and diseases less invasively through our image guidance surgical product."

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