Royal Philips (NYSE:PHG) said yesterday that it signed a 5-year research deal with the Mass. Institute of Technology.
Philips said it is also moving its North American research center from Briarcliff, N.Y. to Cambridge, Mass. Philips has not announced the exact location of its new center. Philips Healthcare is based in nearby Andover.
Seventy percent of the research funding is slated for health diagnostics and imaging technology, with the rest earmarked for commercial lighting, according to MIT News.
Philips has yet to announce which projects will receive the funding, but have indicated interests in "clinical decision support; clinical informatics; interventional guidance, planning, and assessment; and medical ultrasound, photonics, and bioinformatics," according to MIT.
“The Boston area is rich with innovative talent that is regularly applying new thinking to solving big societal issues and developing disruptive technologies that can address those issues in new ways; it’s a culture and vision that is very much in line with that of Philips. By moving to Cambridge and collaborating with MIT, its staff and its partners, Philips can work with some of the best minds in the world on healthcare delivery, looking at ways to better prevent, manage or treat common diseases across the health continuum. In addition, we will explore advancements in connected lighting systems that can improve energy-efficiency, safety, productivity and quality of people’s daily lives,” Philips R&D head Henk van Houten said in prepared remarks.
MIT professor Peter Szolovits, slated to receive funding from the deal, told MIT News that Philips has "expressed interest in working with MIT researchers on improved ultrasound and other noninvasive diagnostics, as well as systems for extracting useful medical information from large databases. This includes many data sources, such as patient records, that may be written in ordinary language."
"One of the things I’m really looking forward to, since they [Philips] are actually making stuff that gets used in hospitals around the world, is that they will develop some of these ideas, that, in turn, would allow MIT students and faculty to do follow-up studies on ‘how well these things work in the real world,’" Szolovits told MIT News.