January 18, 2008, Orsay, France--Imagine Optic, a leading provider of wavefront analysis and adaptive optics technologies, has reported that preliminary results for the fiscal year 2007 indicate 150% growth in the US market, with steady growth in Europe and Asia as well. Worldwide, the company's sales progressed over 10% during the year. The company attributes this growth to increased demand for its adaptive optics product line, most notably the AOKit–bio.
"Over the course of 2007, we made significant investments into our sales and marketing program in order to meet the growing need for high-quality wavefront analysis and
adaptive optics products around the world," said Samuel Bucourt, CEO. "While Europe and Asia remain equally important to us, the US is a key player in many of the industrial and scientific research and development programs that can benefit from our unique product offer."
In 2008, the company will continue its strategy to increase market share around the world. In the US, the company will use the French government's VIE program, designed to bolster the international growth of small to midsized companies, to reinforce its presence by adding a full-time representative at its California-based distributor, Bosa Nova Technologies (Venice, CA).
Worldwide, Imagine Optic will continue its steady growth through creative marketing efforts directed at
increasing both direct and distributor sales. To that end, the company is working closely with its current
customers and resellers to develop and implement a customer-centric organizational strategy that will
enable it to further its ongoing quest to anticipate and respond to market demands.
In related news, Imagine Optic announced that its AOKit–bio system, officially launched at Optics East last fall, was used by some of the world's most prestigious research to achieve dramatic results in the field of bioimaging. Current customers and applications include:
• The University of California at San Francisco's Sedat Lab, thee-dimensional wide-field microscopy for imaging chromosome structure
• The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, multiphoton and confocal microscopy for research in neuroscience and skin disease
• The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, multiphoton microscopy for research in neurobiology
When asked why adaptive optics is key to advancing rapidly in deep tissue microscopy, Peter Kner, Ph.D. and Optical Physicist at the Sedat Lab at UCSF, said, "Resolution and signal intensity degrade rapidly as
you image deeper into biological samples because of optical aberrations. Adaptive optics is the way to
correct these aberrations and restore image quality deep in live tissue."
Claude Boccara from the Ecole Supérieure de Physique de Chimie Industrielles (ESPCI) commented, "Adaptive optics provides the key for unlocking the mysteries behind cellular pathologies including Alzheimer's disease or muscular sclerosis (MS) as well as into the way that cells metabolize and react to medications. The ability to image deep inside the cell and at this level of detail allows research to advance at a faster pace which, we hope, will allow us to bring new detection techniques and treatments to market
sooner."
In the future, Imagine Optic will continue to work closely with its customers in this domain to provide them with the tools they need to continue this important work that may one day impact the lives of people around the world. The company is currently engaged in several advanced research projects that employ adaptive optics in bioimaging including the MICADO (MICroscopy with Adaptive Optics) and STELUM (Ultimate Multiphoton Microscopy).
The company will be exhibiting in booth #715 at Photonics West in San Jose, the world's premier showcase for optics and photonics products.