Elscint was an Israeli technology company that developed, manufactured and sold

medical imaging Medical imaging is the technique and process of imaging the interior of a body for clinical analysis and medical intervention, as well as visual representation of the function of some organs or tissues (physiology). Medical imaging seeks to revea ...

solutions, including:

Nuclear medicine Nuclear medicine (nuclear radiology, nucleology), is a medical specialty involving the application of radioactivity, radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Nuclear imaging is, in a sense, ''radiology done inside out'', ...

computed tomography A computed tomography scan (CT scan), formerly called computed axial tomography scan (CAT scan), is a medical imaging technique used to obtain detailed internal images of the body. The personnel that perform CT scans are called radiographers or ...

magnetic resonance imaging Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to generate pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes inside the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and ...

and

X-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

scanners. Elscint's shares traded on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

as well as on the

Tel Aviv Stock Exchange The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE; ), colloquially known as The Bursa, is the only public stock exchange in Israel and a public company itself, listed on its own exchange since August 1, 2019. It is regulated by the ''Securities Law (1968)'' a ...

. At its height, Elscint was a world leader in the development of

technologies. Most of Elscint's activities were sold to GE Healthcare and Philips Medical Systems.

History

1969–1974: Early years

Elscint (perhaps a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of the words "electronic" and "scientific, but more likely of "El" as in "El Al", and "Scint", as in scintillation, referring to the type of radiation detector used in Nuclear Medicine as in Elscint's first products.) was founded in 1969 by Dr. Avraham Suhami, who was a nuclear physics professor at the

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is a public university, public research university located in Haifa, Israel. Established in 1912 by Jews under the dominion of the Ottoman Empire, the Technion is the oldest university in the coun ...

at the time, after receiving encouragement to apply his scientific and technical knowledge for commercial applications from Uzia Galil, founder of Elron, a technology investment company. Elscint was founded as a subsidiary of Elron with an initial investment of 250.000 US dollars, Suhami was appointed as the company's CEO and Dan Tolkovsky (who was the CEO of Discount Investment Corporation parent of Elron at the time) was appointed as Chairman. The first product developed by the company was a nuclear measurement device for laboratory testing, but since the entire global market for the device was a few hundred units, which sold for $ 800 only, it was decided to refocus on the field of

. Elscint's first product in this field was a nuclear camera designed to detect cancer, but it failed commercially. Later, the company developed the VDP1, a gamma scanner used to monitor radioactive isotopes in the body. The product, sold at a price of $ 25,000 and was the first in the world with digital imaging capability.Elscint Ltd. - Company history
FundingUniverse This VDP1 was the Elscint's first commercial success, and helped the company to reach sales of a million dollars, with a loss of $ 25,000 at the end of first year of operation. The VDP1 product was displayed in trade show in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and drew the attention of

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

, the world leader in medical imaging; and in 1971, Elscint and General Electric signed an exclusive distribution agreement in North America. General Electric insisted that the product met its quality standards, forcing the young company to expand its technical capabilities and its manufacturing capabilities quickly. In 1972, in order to bring the company's products to world markets outside North America, Elscint opened its first international sales and marketing subsidiary in

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

IPO on NASDAQ

In 1971, Fred Adler, an East Coast

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

ist, invested in Elscint and 1972 helped the company undertake an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

on the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System (NASDAQ), making Elscint the first Israeli company to list on the then-recently established stock exchange.

1975–1989: Expansion

By 1975, sales of gamma scanners and other products generated $12 million in revenue, and a profit of $ 400,000 for Elscint, and Avraham Suhami decided to enter a new market -

Computerized tomography A computed tomography scan (CT scan), formerly called computed axial tomography scan (CAT scan), is a medical imaging technique used to obtain detailed internal images of the body. The personnel that perform CT scans are called radiographers or ...

, at the time a new emerging medical imaging technology. The company spent 2 years developing a

scanner, which it started selling in 1977. The company's sales began a steady growth, from $21 million in 1979 to $42 million in 1981. That year, Elscint, which by that time had provided more than 100 CT scanners to hospitals and research institutes around the world, acquired Pfizer's CT scanner business. Elscint's market share grow to 10 percent by the middle of the 1980s. In the first half of the eighties Elscint acquired several other companies and also expanded its product offering to nuclear cameras, ultrasound, digital and conventional X-ray equipment, thus providing products for all medical imaging technologies. In addition, the company began developing its own equipment for the latest breakthrough in medical imaging at the time,

systems. By 1983 the company had sales of $132 million and a net profit of $12.6 million. The company had more than 3,000 employees in factories, research and development facilities in Boston, England, Paris, Milan, Jerusalem, Haifa and Chicago.

Breakup

In 1990 Elbit Computers Ltd, a sister company of Elscint, and a subsidiary of Elron, acquired a majority share in Elscint. In 1996, Elbit Computers was spun off into three independent companies, one of them

Elbit Medical Imaging Elbit Imaging Ltd., formerly Elbit Medical Imaging Ltd., is an Israeli holding company with activities in real estate, medical imaging, hotels, shopping malls, and retail. The company was founded as a spin-off from Elron Electronic Industries an ...

became the holding company of Elscint. During 1999 and 2000, Elscint and Elbit Medical Imaging sold their imaging activities to GE Healthcare and to Philips Medical Systems for approximately $600 million. In 1992, Elscint introduced ''Elscint CT Twin'', the world's first multi-slice (actually it was double-slice) CT scanner. This system could acquire two images with every rotation of the gantry, this was something no other scanner in the world at the time could do. After the Twin the company wished to create a 4 slice system, but this would require a totally new gantry design. In an effort to save time the company decided to sell the multi-slice detector design to

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...

in exchange for their gantry and table. This allowed Siemens to enter into the multi-slice CT game and Elscint shorter to market time for the system that was to be known as the VolumeX. The VolumeX was never produced. By the time it was ready the company was sold to Picker and GE. By 1996, Elscint's revenues reached $311 million. In 1999, Elron Electronic Industries sold all its holdings in Elbit Medical Imaging to Europe Israel Ltd., formerly an Israeli company listed on the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange and controlled by real estate developer Mordechay (Moti) Zisser, for a sum of approximately $127.8 million. Following the acquisition in May 1999, Zisser integrated his existing real estate activities into the company and restructured Elbit Medical Imaging as a

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...

, focusing on: real estate, hotels development, shopping and entertainment malls. In 2005, Elscint was delisted and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Elbit Medical Imaging. By that time, Elscint was no longer engaged in its original medical imaging equipment activities.Elscint Enters Into Merger Agreement With Elbit Medical Imaging
PR Newswire, Aug. 22 2005

References