Philips to buy Electrical Geodesics for brain monitoring tech

Philips has struck a deal to buy Electrical Geodesics for its noninvasive brain activity monitoring and interpretation devices. The Dutch conglomerate plans to combine the technologies with its imaging and informatics assets to better diagnose and guide treatment of neurological disorders.
 
Electrical Geodesics specializes in electroencephalogram (EEG) hardware and software. Like other EEG technologies, the products detect electrical activity in the brain. The difference, as Philips sees it, is the Electrical Geodesics’ technologies use more electrodes to gather brain activity data than is typical.
 
The dense array EEG marketed by Electrical Geodesics uses 256 sensors. Electrical Geodesics opted for this approach to deliver readouts that track changes in brain activity millisecond by millisecond at high resolution.
 
Philips is a believer in the merits of the approach. By adding the technology to a portfolio featuring imaging and informatics capabilities, Philips is aiming to assess the anatomy, physiological processes and electrical activity of the brain. The hope is this comprehensive assessment will improve the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders, notably stroke, epilepsy, traumatic brain injury and Parkinson’s disease.
 
“By fusing these different tools together, we will create a more comprehensive map of the brain, and unlock new computational algorithms which will help to shorten the path to a definitive diagnosis and guide some of the most complex therapeutic strategies,” Philips’ Joe Burnett said in a statement.
 
Philips is set to pay £29 million ($37 million) to acquire Electrical Geodesics. The deal is due to close in the third quarter. Electrical Geodesics is a Eugene, Oregon-based company with a stock listing in London, hence why the deal is priced in British pounds.
 
While Philips is excited by the clinical implications of the EEG technology, Electrical Geodesics is currently reliant on researchers for a sizable slice of its limited revenues. Sales grew 4.7% to $14.3 million last year. Electrical Geodesics was on course to beat that figure until sales fell away in the second half of the year. Management attributed the decline to uncertainty about federal research funding following the election of Donald Trump.