Merge Healthcare Shares Move Following Toshiba Partnership

Shares of Merge Healthcare Inc. (NASDAQ: MRGE) were trading higher Monday morning after the company announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc.

Toshiba America Medical Systems markets, sells, distributes and services diagnostic imaging systems, and coordinates clinical diagnostic imaging research. Merge Healthcare is a provider of innovative enterprise imaging, interoperability and clinical systems which are cloud-based for imagine intensive specialties that provide access to any image, anywhere, any time.

"At Toshiba, we understand our customers' concerns when it comes to integrating IT solutions with imaging," said Satrajit Misra, vice president, marketing, Toshiba America Medical Systems in a press release. "Through this partnership, our customers will get a complete solution for accessing imaging information faster to improve the patient experience and our customers' overall business."

As part of the agreement between the two companies, Toshiba will leverage two of Merge's tools. The first is Merge Hemo, a real-time documentation tool for the cardiac cath lab that facilities the integration of cath lab documentation into a patient's electronic health record. The second tool is Marge Cardio, a web enabled enterprise-level information system that provides a single point of entry to a patient's complete cardio record spanning all cardia modalities.

"For more than 15 years, the Toshiba Corporation has been a great partner with Merge and we are pleased to expand our partnership with Toshiba America Medical Systems to support their enterprise imaging initiative for a unified, interoperable cardiology management system," said Justin Dearborn, chief executive officer at Merge Healthcare in the same press release. "Being an enterprise imaging preferred partner is an honor, and we look forward to helping them achieve their objectives."

Shares of Merge Healthcare have since sold off, recently trading at $4.92.