Varian Medical Systems Inc.'s planned purchase of medical imaging workstation maker InfiMed Inc. should help the company reach smaller OEM customers who have been asking for its flat panel detectors to come integrated with workstations, the company's X-ray Products division chief told DOTmed news.

Division president Robert Kluge said the company already sells a lot of its flat panel detectors to large OEMs to include in their digital X-ray equipment but smaller manufacturers often want FPDs to be sold integrated with image processing and viewing workstations.

"There are so many smaller players that have told us straight out they'd be much more interested in doing business if [the FPDs] were already integrated to a workstation," he said. "This [deal] will allow us to put packages together that are easier for our customers to use."
Kluge said Varian had looked into making its own workstations, but opted for an acquisition as it puts them in the market sooner.

Kluge added that InfiMed would remain in Liverpool and Rochester, N.Y., where it's currently based, and that no layoffs were planned. The InfiMed name would also be retained as a product name.

"We will fully integrate them into our business," he said.

Varian's X-ray division posted almost $470 million in sales for fiscal 2011, out of company-wide revenues of nearly $2.6 billion, according to an earnings statement.

Varian, headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif. is one of the leading companies in the FPD sector and has installed more than 20,000 receptors in the medical and industrial imaging fields, the company said on its website. In the late 1990s, the company's Mountain View, Calif. research center developed the first amorphous silicon flat panel detector capable of obtaining both radiographs and fluoroscopic imaging.

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