Tech News

Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Last updated 11:03 a.m. PT

Startup's software lets doctors work with standard PCs or PDAs

By JOSEPH TARTAKOFF
P-I REPORTER

Doctors looking to analyze three-dimensional images generated from an MRI or CT Scan on their own typically have to go to a specialized workstation, often located in the radiology department of a hospital.

Starting Wednesday, when Redmond's FiatLux Imaging puts its first product on the market, that will no longer have to be the case because the company's software allows doctors to work with the images on standard PCs or PDAs.

"We're saying, let's move this outside the (radiology) department," Chief Executive Officer Mary Frances Feider said.

Feider said FiatLux hopes to sell 1,200 licenses over the next six months. Next year, the startup hopes to sell 6,500.

The possibilities are exemplified by the posters on the walls of FiatLux's offices in the WestPark office complex. In one, a doctor looks at a scan on a laptop, while a child and dog wander around her in the kitchen. Another shows a doctor in a red convertible looking at an image on the PDA adjacent to her, while taking in the sun.

The implications could be broad: If FiatLux's software is widely adopted, patients could have their scans analyzed more quickly. Costs should also drop (FiatLux will charge $2,825 for a software license. By contrast, several doctors said traditional software, along with the specialized workstation necessary to run it, can cost as much as $100,000).

FiatLux is the brainchild of three Microsoft Corp. veterans - Feider, Quentin Dewolf and John Pella - who started the firm in April 2007. The 20-employee company has raised $4.5 million from angel investors and Scientific Health Development, a Dallas-based investment fund.

Dewolf and Pella worked in video game development at Microsoft and, indeed, FiatLux's software is able to run on all PCs because it depends on DirectX, a Microsoft graphics platform, which is commonly associated with video games.

Paul Chang, a professor of radiology at the University of Chicago, who said he had tried out FiatLux's software at a medical meeting, said he was urging competitors to look at FiatLux's approach.

Some other software makers have introduced Web-based tools that allow doctors to analyze images online from their computers, but performance was not "nearly as smooth and as high-performing," Chang said.

"When you're killing aliens, you're doing very sophisticated things," he said, referring to video games. "That kind of turning and rotating ... is exactly what we do in advanced medical imaging. If anything, the task in medical imaging is less than the imaging my kids take for granted."

He said that although advanced medical imaging had existed for several years, its use had been limited because of cost. FiatLux's technology, he said, could provide the needed breakthrough to make it ubiquitous.

"You can't buy a PC that isn't capable of playing video games," Chang said.

P-I reporter Joseph Tartakoff can be reached at 206-448-8293 or joetartakoff@seattlepi.com. For more information on life sciences, read blog.seattlepi.com/lifesciences.

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