Indica Labs, a provider in quantitative digital pathology and image management solutions, and Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., a forerunner in whole slide imaging systems, announced an agreement to maintain long-term interoperability between Indica Lab’s HALO AP software platform and Hamamatsu’s NanoZoomer family of high-speed, high-resolution scanners.

Indica Lab’s browser-based, CE-marked* HALO AP software brings case-centric digital pathology slide management, collaboration, and AI-powered quantitative image analysis to Anatomic Pathology labs worldwide. In keeping with Indica Lab’s ethos of an accessible and open pathology ecosystem, HALO AP is scanner agnostic and integrates with a variety of third-party software applications, including AI solutions and LIS/LIMS platforms, using flexible, easy-to-use APIs and software development kit (SDK).

As laboratories adopt digital solutions, the challenge for laboratory managers is to integrate an array of hardware and software and achieve maximum efficiency. This collaboration between Indica Labs and Hamamatsu streamlines this process.

“Providing interoperability and scalable solutions is critical to the adoption of digital pathology,” says Don Ariyakumar, NanoZoomer product manager at Hamamatsu. “We believe that customers should be able to choose best-of-class products. The option to implement the most appropriate hardware and software for their specific needs increases the value of digital pathology for all stakeholders.”

Hamamatsu’s technical collaboration with Indica Labs will facilitate Indica Labs approach to regulatory clearances utilizing the HALO AP system in conjunction with the NanoZoomer S360MD for primary diagnosis. Ongoing technical performance assessments to verify that Hamamatsu’s image format is accurately displayed in all Indica Labs’ viewers guarantees continued interoperability of Indica and Hamamatsu products and will help drive the adoption of these technologies within the pathology community.

“This agreement is an important reassurance to our mutual customers that both companies are committed to working together on technical, regulatory, and commercial fronts,” says Indica Labs CEO Steven Hashagen. “It ensures we can achieve image fidelity and interoperability across our viewing and analysis software, allows us to align our regulatory submissions, and facilitates sales and support cooperation for our mutual customers as we have demonstrated in the past.”

The relationship between Indica Labs and Hamamatsu resulted in the win of significant digital pathology tenders in the United Kingdom, most notably Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.

NUH is the third largest NHS Trust in the United Kingdom, serving over 2.5 million patients, and generating 340,000 pathology slides per year. The goal of the NUH implementation is full digitization of the pathology workflow.

*HALO AP is CE-IVD marked for use in primary diagnosis within the European Economic Area, Switzerland, and the UK and is for research use only in the U.S.