Sony Corporation announced this week that it has acquired Micronics, Inc. (headquartered in Redmond, Washington). Micronics is involved in the development of near patient point-of-care devices for disease diagnosis, treatment monitoring and blood testing, and also provides product development services for third-party clients. Sony said that it acquired Micronics to accelerate its own research and development, particularly for point-of-care diagnostic equipment, as well as to accelerate the commercialization of these products.
Near patient point-of-care diagnosis refers to the ability to facilitate rapid and accurate results via testing that can be performed in a physician's office, emergency room, or patient's hospital bedside, rather than having to send a patient's specimens to an off-site laboratory. Utilizing its microfluidics technologies, one of Micronics' main strengths since its inception in 1996, the company has yielded achievements in the advancement of near patient point-of-care products in both the molecular and immunoassay diagnostic test domain, in part through its collaborative partnerships with private and public organizations, both within the U.S. and internationally. Micronics has incorporated this experience in its development of a near patient point-of-care molecular diagnostic platform for the diagnosis of infectious disease, which has been the company's main focus in recent years.
Micronics will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America (SCA), and will work with the relevant division, including Sony's life sciences R&D team, to jointly develop technologies and new products. The company will continue to operate in Redmond under the current Micronics management team, headed by President Karen Hedine.
According to Hedine, "As a new member of the Sony family, we at Micronics aim to make full use of Sony's superior consumer-based technologies, product development capabilities and capacity to distribute products globally in the development of Micronics' products. We believe that the powerful combination of Sony's expertise with that of Micronics' will lend itself to a new generation of market-responsive diagnostic products."
Sony's Executive Vice President Mr. Keiji Kimura added, "The Sony Group warmly welcomes Micronics. For some time, Sony has applied its consumer electronics technology to contribute to research and development in the medical and healthcare fields. We believe that the combination of Micronics' development capabilities in the medical diagnosis domain and our consumer electronics and IT technologies, such as in optical discs, will enable us to offer innovative solutions that are responsive to the rapidly escalating needs for point-of-care diagnosis worldwide."
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This article is a part of MEMS Investor Journal's ongoing market research project in the area of microfluidics and MEMS point-of-care applications. If you would like to receive our comprehensive market research report on this topic, please contact Dr. Mike Pinelis at [email protected] for more information about rates and report contents.
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