'SonoSite, Inc. is the worldwide market and technology leader in high performance, hand-carried ultrasound. Through its expertise in ASIC design, SonoSite is able to offer imaging performance typically found in ultrasound systems weighing more than 300 pounds in a system architecture that is approximately the size and weight of a laptop computer and provides a significant price to performance advantage compared to conventional systems. This breakthrough is transforming and expanding the worldwide diagnostic ultrasound market by serving existing clinical markets more efficiently and creating new point-of-care applications where ultrasound was either too cumbersome or too expensive to be used before. With over 15,000 systems sold since 1999, SonoSite products are known for exceptional performance, ease of use and durability.'

'SonoSite began as a division of ATL Ultrasound in 1997 focused on the development of all-digital, handheld ultrasound devices. In February 1995, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Administration (DARPA) had awarded to ATL a two-year matching grant to develop a highly portable ultrasound device for use on the battlefield or in natural or man-made disasters to diagnose victims of severe trauma. This program culminated with a prototype in October 1998. ATL spun off SonoSite as a public company on April 6, 1998.'

In March 2012 Fujifilm Holdings completes the acquisition of SonoSite.

Ultrasound Systems:

California-based research and development company. Alliance Pharmaceutical Corporation. The principal activities of the Company is identifying, designing, and developing novel medical products. The Company is engaged in development of scientific discoveries into medical products and licensing these products to multinational pharmaceutical companies in exchange for fixed payments and royalty or profit sharing payments. The Company has developed three innovative products through initial clinical (human) trials. The products are Oxygent™, Liquivent and Imavist™. The Company's strategy is to identify potential new medical products though its own efforts and scientific collaborations with researchers and clinicians in universities and medical centers. In Dec 2000 the company acquired Molecular Biosystems Inc a developer of intravenous ultrasound contrast agent for the heart.

'September 20, 2001 Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp. announced that it has won a favorable Final Judgment from the United States Patent and Trademark Office's Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences regarding claims in U.S. Patent No. 5,558,854, which is owned by Nycomed Imaging, AS. The Final Judgment determined that claims made in the Nycomed patent with respect to 'microbubbles' that contain perfluorohexane filling gas are invalid and are therefore unpatentable.'
June 04, 2010, the company announced in their quartzerly report: 'We no longer have working capital to fund our operations. Because adequate funds have not been available to us in the past, we have already delayed our Oxygent development efforts and have eliminated our other product development programs.'

Ultrasound Contrast Agents:

[This entry is marked for removal.]

GE Medical Systems and Amersham announced in April 2004 the completion of a share exchange acquisition of Amersham Health by GE. The result of this acquisition is the new GE Healthcare, based in the UK, totally owned by General Electric (GE).

The British company was a producer of contrast-imaging agents used to enhance image quality in X-ray, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasound procedures. It was also a leading producer of radiopharmaceuticals used in nuclear medicine imaging. Amersham Health was the firm's imaging, diagnostics, and therapeutics segment. Amersham was involved in biotechnology research through its Amersham Biosciences unit, which makes scanners, sequencers, microarrays, industrial separations, and other research supplies.

From Bracco Research S. A., Geneva, Switzerland
BG1135 is a polymer-shelled new ultrasound contrast agent under development. The air-filled microsphere has a rigid, 100 nm thick polymeric shell and a mean diameter of 2.9 μm with 99% less than 8 μm.
The destruction mechanism of BG1135 is unique among microbubbles. The microbubbles of BG1135 appear to acquire a small shell defect, allowing the filling gas to stream out and creating a new gas bubble, but leaving the old shell intact. No significant differences between the diameters of the shells can be measured before and after insonation even though the agent is fragmented.

From Bracco Research SA, Geneva, Switzerland,
BR14 is a new experimental ultrasound contrast agent, consisting of bubbles containing a high molecular weight filling gas enclosed by a flexible phospholipid monolayer shell a few nanometers thick.
This agent shows significant non-linear scattering and agent modification even at low insonation pressures, the detection pulses used did not destroy the contrast bubbles. The results obtained with HPD before the release burst show that the BR14 bubbles are efficient scatterers that can be modified and, thus, detected by low power insonation.