Imricor Medical Systems Inc (ASX: IMR) shares are getting a lot of attention from investors on Thursday.
At the time of writing, the ASX healthcare stock is up 25% to a 52-week high of $1.34.
Why is this ASX healthcare stock rocketing?
Investors have been fighting to get hold of the medical device company's shares after it announced a licensing agreement with Switzerland's ADIS.
ADIS is a software company that has been working with Imricor to build artificial intelligence (AI) modules to integrate into Imricor's NorthStar 3D mapping system.
Today's licensing agreement defines the commercial terms for the selling of the NorthStar AI modules to customers.
And while the NorthStar 3D mapping system and the AI modules are not yet approved for commercial sale, regulatory processes are well progressed. As a result, preparations for planned commercial launches across Europe, the United States, and the Middle East in 2025 are underway.
Under the terms of the agreement, Imricor will offer NorthStar AI modules as software license options to users and share the upfront and ongoing software license revenue with ADIS.
What is the NorthStar 3D mapping system?
NorthStar3D is a mapping and guidance system for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
It allows users to control the MRI scanner, receive MR images in real-time from the scanner, display those MR images in 3D, actively track Imricor trackable devices, and create 3D electroanatomical maps that include intracardiac electrogram signals from Imricor's Advantage-MR system.
According to the release, the first AI module the companies are targeting is one for providing automatic heart segmentation capabilities to NorthStar.
Segmentation is the process of creating 3D anatomical shells of heart chambers from standard MRI images. It notes that currently a physician must create the 3D shell segmentations manually, which typically takes about 20 minutes. Automatic segmentation in NorthStar is expected to take just a few seconds and make the process much more convenient for physicians.
Commenting on the agreement, the ASX healthcare stock's chair and CEO, Steve Wedan, said:
We have been working with the highly talented people at ADIS for several years, and last year we cemented our joint development activities to deliver cutting edge AI capabilities to NorthStar. We expect these AI modules to increasingly deliver more and more value from the superior imaging capabilities of MRI to our users through NorthStar.
With today's agreement, we have taken the next step with ADIS to solidify the commercial terms around which we will deliver these capabilities, as we get prepared to launch NorthStar to the market. It is our goal to make NorthStar the indispensable central hub around which any customer's iCMR program is built.
