Headquartered near Besançon in the Franche-Comté region of France with 120 employees, IMASONIC (https://www.imasonic.com/en/home/) is an SME using the best tools currently available for the design, manufacture and characterization of custom ultrasound transducers for a large range of innovative applications.
IMASONIC benefits from a thirty-year track record in design and manufacturing and as such, their production capacity is organized for customized, series or prototype production. Their teams work collaboratively within an assemblage of national and international projects and partners. IMASONIC possesses an array of experience with numerous innovations in the medical and industrial fields. Their quality management system is in accordance with ISO 9001: 2015 and covers all of the company’s activities, namely: the design, manufacture and sale of ultrasonic transducers, associated services and after-sales services. The company strives to improve customer satisfaction, their processes in compliance with customer requirements as well as all applicable regulatory requirements.
Introducing Dr Frédéric Brochin, R&D Project Manager at IMASONIC. We posed a few questions to Frédéric about his role, the company and background to IMASONIC’s involvement in EUPHORIA.
Please tell us a bit about yourself and your background in materials science and R&D.
My background is in Materials Science and Engineering, especially the processes of fabrication and characterization of materials. During my PhD thesis, I have been working on the fabrication of nanocomposite materials and the characterization of the relationship between their microstructure and their electrical and thermal properties. I joined IMASONIC in 2000 and was in charge with European and National research projects on the development of new piezoelectric materials, such as single crystals (DEMOCRITE) or lead free ceramics (IMMEDIATE). In parallel, I was involved in projects on the development of new structures of transducers for high temperature and harsh environment (HITUV, PHARUSIT) and miniaturized transducer structures (MINUET) for high frequency (50 MHz) medical imaging. More recently, I have been working on the development of transducers for photo-acoustical imaging in the frame of a H2020 Project (PAMMOTH) on the diagnosis of breast cancer. Photo-acoustical imaging is a very interesting R&D field and challenging concerning the transducers since it requires combining high signal to noise ratio and broad frequency bandwidth to detect the very low pressures generated by the chromophores. Moreover, in EUPHORIA, photo-acoustical imaging is combined with echography, which requires also good transducer performances in pulse-echo. This pushes us into considering new materials and processes to fulfil all those requirements.
Have you worked with iThera Medical or RayFos on projects previous to EUPHORIA? Can you tell us the background of this successful working relationship?
We have been working on the development of several transducers with iThera.
Our first contacts with iThera Medical date back to the early days of the German start-up in May 2010. This contact followed the design and the development of a multi-element detection array that we had initiated at the end of 2008 with the team of the Institute for Biological and Medical Imaging (IBMI) at the Technical University of Munich and Helmholtz Center, Munich, Germany.
iThera Medical – a spin-off of the German laboratory – was then in charge of the industrial and commercial development of the MSOT technology and it is thus in a form of continuity that this collaboration was born.
At that time, our first photoacoustic imaging transducer for small animals had 64 elements and covered an aperture of slightly less than 180 degrees. We have pursued our collaboration by continuously improving the specifications and the performance of our detectors, which for this pre-clinical application, for example, have gone from 64 to 128, 256 and now 512 elements.
Since then, a wide variety of preclinical and clinical applications have been explored showing the great potential of the MSOT technology. We are happy and proud to be part of this …. imaging revolution!
What are the first steps the company takes when taking on a new client or a new project like EUPHORIA?
For a new project, the first thing is to understand the client’s need and to see how we can contribute to its satisfaction. Expected gains for IMASONIC are also defined. We can then share the objectives to be addressed for this and define a relevant project organisation for their achievement. In the case of EUPHORIA, we already had contacts with iThera before launching the project and it was very helpful to gain efficiency at the project start. Regarding the very short development time in FTI projects, it is important to anticipate as much as possible the collaboration.
What are the most important variables considered when designing a transducer for a specific medical purpose?
IMASONIC develops medical transducers for two main fields: therapeutic applications and imaging applications. In both cases, the design of a transducer relies on the application requirements and their translation into transducer specifications.
In therapeutic applications, high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is used to get action on tissues. The most important variables to consider are the size and the depth of the target (a tumour for instance). From this, it is then possible to set the beam size, the suitable frequency and the needed acoustic intensity at a focal distance for the treatment.
For imaging applications, like in EUPHORIA, the first step is to make a link between the image quality and the transducer performances. Depending on the imaging modality (photo-acoustical or echography), the target and the required image quality (resolution, depth), the most important transducer parameters (aperture, frequency, shape, array pitch…) can be chosen to get suitable performances (bandwidth, pulse length, angular acceptance, beam-forming capacitance…) for the application. This is usually addressed gradually with the customer to agree at the end on final transducer specifications.
The transducer design can be then defined at IMASONIC with models addressing the electro-acoustic behaviour and the ultrasound propagation. Simulations of the transducer performances are performed with these models to check that they can fit with the client specifications.
For medical applications, specific constraints need also to be considered, especially in the case of contact with the tissues. The packaging and the interconnection are designed in a way that ensures biocompatibility and electrical safety.
IMASONIC relies on a specific standard based procedure for its medical transducers development.
EUPHORIA is based on the enhancement of the MSOT Acuity, an existing, working system. Which do you prefer: starting from a blank slate or taking an existing piece of technology and improving it for different purposes? Why?
Good question!
Starting from a blank slate gives some freedom for exploration. However, in the frame of a project, it results generally in some technological bricks and at best, the realization of a “lab prototype” for a first proof of concept, but the road to market is still long.
In the case of EUPHORIA, starting from an existing system and running for its commercialization gives less room for exploration but is very exciting for an industrial partner as IMASONIC. Beyond the industrialization and commercialization objectives, there was also a real R&D challenge in this project for optical shielding and bandwidth improvement, in only one year…. Fast Track to Innovation!
For IMASONIC, what has been most satisfying in your involvement in EUPHORIA?
It was very interesting for IMASONIC to be involved in this project. This helps us to better understand the photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging requirements and the link with the transducer performances. It is also very exciting to be indirectly involved in clinical tests and follow their progression.
FTI (Fast Track to Innovation) gives also very interesting timing for quick improvements. The interactions with the partners are intensified in comparison with other kinds of projects. In EUPHORIA, we have received very fast feedbacks from iThera on the different tested transducer designs in the first year of the project. We could validate in only 1.5 years a new design combining efficient optical shielding and bandwidth improvement, and we are already implementing the industrialization of this new product for its commercialization. This challenge could be only successfully met thanks to the efficient collaboration on this FTI project!