Partnerships, Power Plays and the Push to Evolve in Digital Labs
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Written by Alan Stoddart , Managing Editor Signify Premium Insights – Digital Laboratory
This article provides several links to our Signify Premium Insights, evaluating recent mergers and news events. To access these articles, you will need a subscription or simply request a 30-day free trial below.
There were a significant number of stories which caught the eye of the Signify Premium Insights – Digital Laboratory team over June, with some high profile, and some more subtle stories poised to have a dramatic impact on the market.
One of the stories featuring major names was the announcement of a partnership between Leica Biosystems owner Danaher, and major pharmaceutical vendor, AstraZeneca . Given the scale of both of these vendors, as well as the number of individual brands under the Danaher Corporation name, the tie-in could have a dramatic impact, helping the drug company get its products into the hands of more patients who could benefit and in doing so, help Danaher and Leica increase revenues.
Partnerships were also key for Lumea , with the company announcing a spate of tie-ins with other vendors. This abundance of partnerships represents an essential truth in digital pathology. At present, no single vendor can do everything, so partnerships can offer significant strategic benefits, bringing vendors with complementary capabilities together, and allowing customers to benefit from the strengths of two vendors in a single seamless workflow. More subtly, an open approach to partnerships also highlights that a vendor is willing to partner and is open to interoperability; a frequent concern for those looking to adopt digital pathology solutions.
Yet another partnership became the subject of a Premium Insight, with a focus on PathAI 's strategic collaboration with Northwestern Medicine .
The move will see the Chicago-based integrated academic health system use PathAI’s AISight digital pathology image management system to transform its pathology diagnostics.
The multi-year agreement enables the provider to leverage PathAI’s tools to improve efficiency and improving the quality of pathology operations. But it also establishes a framework for joint research initiatives, clinical innovation programmes and co-development of novel AI-powered tools. The collaboration is likely to be fruitful, with significant synergies between vendors and academic hospitals ready to be leveraged.
For some vendors however, partnerships weren’t enough. QIAGEN fell into this category, and as such decided to snap up Israeli vendor Genoox. The molecular-diagnostics vendor will use the acquisition to strengthen its portfolio, adding Franklin, Genoox’s flagship cloud-based community platform to the Qiagen Digital Insights portfolio.
The move helps bolster Qiagen’s role in genetic interpretation for clinical genomics applications, as well as providing a route to incorporate Qiagen’s genomic content in the Franklin platform.
It wasn’t all camaraderie and collaboration, however. One of the month’s Premium Insights detailed a lawsuit which erupted between two rivals, Element Biosciences and Illumina .
The suit, filed by Illumina, alleges that Element has infringed on several patents pertaining to automated genetic sequencing, and claims the vendor used proprietary technology covering flow cell, fluid storage and other aspects of instrument design.
Element denied the charges, insisting they were unfounded and “represent an anticompetitive effort to limit choice and stifle innovation”. Regardless of who is victorious in the law suit, it highlights Illumina’s determination to retain its market position, as well as highlighting the ruthlessness of the growing market.
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This article provides several links to our Signify Premium Insights, evaluating recent mergers and news events. To access these articles, you will need a subscription or simply request a 30-day free trial below.
About Alan Stoddart, Managing Editor - Signify Premium Insights – Digital Laboratory
Alan joined Signify Research in 2020, using his editorial expertise to lead on the company’s insight and analysis services. Prior to joining, Alan held editorial positions covering a diverse range of technology and engineering topics working with Kantar Media and Kimberley Media Group.
About the Signify Premium Insights Contributing Analysts
Signify Premium Insights rely heavily on the industry expertise from Signify Research’s expert medical imaging analyst team. This team brings with it many years of experience developing market reports, insights and providing consultancy services to the medical imaging industry.
Imogen Fitt , Principal Analyst
Imogen joined Signify in 2018 as part of the Healthcare IT team. She holds a 1st class Biomedical Sciences degree from the University of Warwick. During her tenure Imogen has completed studies on digital pathology and the use of AI in drug development, expanding Signify Research’s coverage of clinical/preclinical markets.
Harsimran Kaur , Senior Market Analyst
Harsimran joined Signify Research in 2025 as a Senior Market Analyst in the Digital Laboratory and Lifesciences team. With over eight years of experience, she specialises in secondary and primary market research, as well as strategy consulting, providing insights to global customers across industries such as cancer therapeutics, rare diseases, novel biomarkers, digital therapeutics, and patient support programs.
Elizabeth Bourn , Market Analyst
Lizzie joined Signify Research in January 2025 as a Market Analyst within the Digital Laboratory & Lifesciences team. She holds a BSc in Biology from the University of Leeds with an industrial placement year at Amgen where she worked in patient safety.
About Signify Research
Signify Research provides healthtech market intelligence powered by data that you can trust. We blend insights collected from in-depth interviews with technology vendors and healthcare professionals with sales data reported to us by leading vendors to provide a complete and balanced view of the market trends. Our coverage areas are Medical Imaging, Clinical Care, Digital Health, Digital Laboratory and Lifesciences, Healthcare IT and AI in Healthcare.
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