Medical robotics company Clarapath partners with the Mayo Clinic

Medical robotics company Clarapath recently announced it has entered into a strategic collaboration with the Mayo Clinic.

Clarapath said pathology laboratories currently rely on labor intensive, manual procedures to process tissue specimens for purposes of diagnosing cancer and other diseases. Faced with labor shortages, quality control challenges, and rapidly increasing sample volumes, pathology laboratories seek to improve the reliability and efficiency of creating glass slides for pathological review.

Clarapath’s SectionStar is an automated tissue sectioning, transfer, and quality control system that combines robotics, computational AI, and integrated histopathology workflows, which the company said can provide standardized slide outputs and quantitative quality metrics. This system can accelerate sample processing and reduce human involvement and errors, Clarapath said.

Automated systems could speed up histology slide prep process

The Mayo Clinic's collaboration combines its clinical insights with Clarapath’s tissue slide preparation system and domain knowledge. Clarapath said the partnership can enable laboratories across the globe to improve the quality, safety, cost, and throughput of their histology process using digital tools.

Clarapath said its automation system can support more informed and faster decisions that help improve the delivery and quality of patient care, and allow existing laboratory personnel to handle rising case volumes. Additionally, the companies said they will collaborate to develop new solutions to further improve the histopathology laboratory.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with the Mayo Clinic to advance the modernization of anatomic pathology,” said Eric Feinstein, Clarapath CEO. “Laboratories, like manufacturing plants, need constant innovation and modernization. With SectionStar, leaders can now reimagine the histology process to keep up with increasing caseloads and shrinking workforces. This will help patients get quicker test results and more immediate access to care."

Mayo Clinic’s Joaquín García joins Clarapath board of directors

As part of the collaboration, the Mayo Clinic’s Joaquín García, M.D. is joining Clarapath’s board of directors. García is chair of the division of anatomic pathology within the department of laboratory medicine and pathology, as well as chair of Mayo Clinic's digital pathology program.

“Incorporating digital pathology and artificial intelligence into our current practice has highlighted the need for standardizing pre-analytic processes,” García said. "By working with Clarapath, we are building the foundation for a 'lab of the future' that incorporates end-to-end automation, robotics, and AI to the patient tissue lifecycle.”

The Mayo Clinic has a financial interest in the technology referenced in this press release. The Mayo Clinic said it will use any revenue it receives to support its not-for-profit mission in patient care, education and research.