Vista, CA and Munich, Germany – May 10, 2011 – Aperio, the global leader in providing digital pathology solutions that improve patient care, and Definiens, the leading Health Image Intelligence™ company, today announced a partnership in which Aperio will market Definiens Tissue Studio™, the company’s leading image analysis software for quantitative digital pathology, on a worldwide, non-exclusive basis.

Image analysis is a cutting-edge capability that provides automated quantitative analytical techniques to help pathologists interpret pathology slides, which informs treatment decisions and improves patient care.

Definiens Tissue Studio will be integrated into Aperio’s applications framework and accessible through its Spectrum™ information management system to expand the existing suite of image analysis tools that include Area Quantification, Cell Quantification, Microvessel Analysis, Rare Event Detection and Genie Histology Pattern Recognition.  The Spectrum system includes viewing tools and enables the execution of analysis applications in a geographically distributed environment for maximum throughput.

“This alliance furthers our ability to significantly improve intra- and inter-observer agreement and patient care by providing the most scalable and highest performance digital pathology solutions available,” said Dirk G. Soenksen, CEO of Aperio. “We are excited that Definiens recognizes the value of leveraging their leading image analysis software on the industry’s most robust digital pathology platform.”

Definiens Tissue Studio automatically detects regions of interest within a tissue sample and quantifies these regions on a cell-by-cell basis. The detailed quantification enables a large number of standard and user-defined measurements. In addition to classifications such as staining intensity and cell counts, the software quantifies individual cellular morphological characteristics such as circularity, elliptical fit, area, length, width and distance to tumor border to help accurately measure nuclear, cytoplasmic, and membrane biomarkers. Additionally, it allows users to create completely new features offering virtually unlimited quantification related to biomarker expression and tissue morphology.

Aperio users in both healthcare and life sciences will benefit from Definiens Tissue Studio’s fluorescence image analysis capabilities and morphometry tools. Morphometry can provide pathologists with a means to make more educated decisions about a course of treatment, and for  determining the relative effect of drug candidates on cells and tissues.

“Digital pathology is becoming an essential technology for increasing productivity and improving treatment decisions,” said Thomas Heydler, CEO of Definiens. “Automated image analysis is the next step in digital pathology, providing clinicians with greater insight into patients’ disease states. Definiens Tissue Studio is a natural fit for Aperio’s platform, and we expect to reach a wide customer base as a result of this partnership.”

Aperio’s digital pathology platform provides a unique combination of instruments, image management software and a patent-protected architecture that allows image analysis partners such as Definiens to offer their applications to the largest and fastest growing installed base (800 systems, including 500 in hospitals and reference labs) of digital pathology customers. Aperio plans to continually expand its capabilities with tools from other suppliers.