Business Environment
With state-of-the-art clinical and research institutions, a deep base of experienced talent, and a rapidly growing pool of 55+ companies including major players, emerging technology businesses, suppliers and service providers, Cleveland+ is becoming a global powerhouse of imaging innovation.
Global Giants
Every Tier 1 company in the medical imaging equipment market has a significance presence in Cleveland. Five of these companies - Philips, Toshiba, Siemens, GE and Hitachi – have a combined 90% worldwide market share in MRI and CT.
Philips Healthcare, for example, bases its CT and nuclear medicine businesses here, manufacturing new high-end CT scanners in its suburban Cleveland facility. They built their 7T MRI and added approximately 500,000-1M square feet of new research, sales and service support for 1100 personnel facility (that typically supports ~1500 people daily as it also serves as Philips Healthcare’s National Service Training Center).
Philips Healthcare chose to invest $33.4 million in a new Global Advanced Imaging Innovation Center to be based at Cleveland’s UH Case Medical Center because the biomedical imaging cluster in Cleveland+ is becoming a powerhouse of innovation and a magnet for the attraction of leading imaging companies throughout the world.
Philips Healthcare Chief Executive Steve Rusckowski emphasizes the strategic importance of locating his advanced medical imaging facilities in Cleveland+, stating: “There is a huge history and tradition of diagnostic imaging engineering here in Cleveland. This crew here in Cleveland has what it takes. They produce world-class technology.”
Emerging Technology Companies
Forbes Magazine recently named Quality Electrodynamics (QED), a Cleveland+ medical imaging business, as one of the nation’s most promising young companies. QED develops and manufactures patent-protected detectors used in MRI machines for global imaging giants Toshiba and Siemens.
The company was founded in 2006 by Dr. Hiroyuki Fujita, a graduate in Physics from CWRU who served as director of imaging physics at CWRU. Fujita and several colleagues developed smaller magnetic coil technology to be used in MRI equipment, making the imaging process more efficiently and timely.
With the assistance of the State of Ohio’s Third Frontier grants and key customer contracts, Dr. Fujita grew QED from a 300-square foot room at CWRU into a 27,000 square foot facility in a Cleveland suburb, employing 55+ people.
In addition to MRI and CT, many emerging and mid-size Cleveland+ companies such as Imalux, Navotek, SpineMatrix, Teraphysics, and Vasolux also have expertise in other innovative medical imaging technologies.
Medical Imaging Companies Relocating to Cleveland+
Many companies originally from outside of Northeast Ohio such as M2M Imaging and ViewRay are also recognizing the advantages of relocating here near the resources associated with the region’s medical imaging cluster.