Philips acquires Canadian innovator Reacts

MONTREAL – Philips has acquired Montreal-based Reacts – a Canadian leader in the development of telehealth solutions and augmented reality. The acquisition allows Philips to add to its range of technological innovations. As for Reacts, the partnership will provide access to an exceptional commercialization force, allowing it to accelerate and expand its development in the context of the growing needs for remote collaboration in healthcare.

The Reacts’ team and head office will remain in Montreal, with Dr. Yanick Beaulieu (pictured), founder and creator of Reacts, staying as a strategic lead for the Reacts team. In his new role, Dr. Beaulieu will become head of Clinical Solutions for Philips Ultrasound.

Part of the new plan is to create a Centre of Excellence for digital healthcare collaboration. The Reacts teams’ expertise will support Philips’ technological developments in virtual collaboration globally.

“Reacts addresses the clear and pressing need for secure remote collaboration and communication between healthcare providers and patients,” said Dr. Yanick Beaulieu, head of Clinical Solutions for Philips Ultrasound. “By deploying this interactive collaboration platform across Philips’ health technology solutions, we can change patient care models, expand telehealth capabilities, and accelerate technological developments in virtual collaboration globally.”

Since 2018, Reacts has been integrated with the Philips’ Lumify point-of-care ultrasound solution enabling users to share the live ultrasound stream from a Lumify device with a remote colleague on a mobile device, tablet or computer.

This allows both parties to simultaneously view the live ultrasound image, as well as the webcam video stream, and provide real-time feedback. Lumify with Reacts has proven to be a valuable tool for educational institutions, medical students and resident clinicians, EMS providers with long transit times, disaster relief providers, hospitals with satellite clinics, and clinicians seeking peer-to-peer collaboration for virtual guidance and training.

Lumify with Reacts can provide valuable diagnostic insight for front-line care providers to manage COVID-19-related lung and cardiac complications. Moreover, by enabling remote communication, Reacts reduces the need for physical interaction and can therefore help minimize the risk of virus transmission for medical teams.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Philips has also successfully piloted Reacts to provide case support during image-guided therapy procedures, remotely assisting clinicians as they diagnose and treat patients with coronary artery disease and other cardiovascular diseases. Philips will now further expand Reacts across its Diagnosis & Treatment portfolio.

“It is vital that we continue to advance our offering to help customers increase first-time-right diagnoses, by integrating innovations and technology that alleviate our customers’ pain points and streamline workflows,” said Bich Le, business leader Ultrasound at Philips. “With Reacts’ unique interactive tools we can provide secure expert solutions, and the training and support, needed for physicians to make definitive diagnostic decisions effectively and efficiently. This will enable us to accelerate our commitment to the patients we serve today as well as expanding access to imaging for new users and new use cases.”