Our Company...
History
VIDA is both the word “Life” in Spanish and an acronym representing the core 
mission of our software “Volumetric Information Display and Analysis.” The initial inspiration for the company began 20 years ago when Dr. Eric Hoffman developed three-dimensional X-ray imaging techniques at the Mayo Clinic's ground-breaking Dynamic Spatial Reconstructor project. His vision was to utilize the wealth of density information embedded in a three-dimensional radiological image to add quantitative, repeatable diagnostic metrics to the visual interpretation of scan images.
After moving to the University of Iowa, Dr. Hoffman began to collaborate with VIDA's other co-founders, all faculty members at the University. The other 
founders are Dr. Joseph Reinhardt, an associate professor of Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Milan Sonka a professor of Electrical Engineering and Geoff McLennan, MD PhD., a leading interventional pulmonologist with appointments in the departments of Medicine and Radiology. At Iowa, VIDA's founders were able to build a world-recognized leadership position in lung imaging research, culminating in the spring of 2005 in the dedication of the Iowa Comprehensive Lung Imaging Center (I-CLIC), a one-of-a-kind facility dedicated to lung imaging and lung function research.
In 2004, VIDA received its first seed stage funding and hired John Garber as CEO and Juerg Tschirren, PhD as director of engineering. VIDA's first product was 
launched, the Emphysema Profiler, the world's first automatic whole-lung densitometer.
In 2005, VIDA Diagnostics received an SBIR grant to expand it's product capabilities as a tool to measure emphysema relative to feeding airways and launched its second product, the Pulmonary Workstation, or PW, to leverage the novel airway measurement techniques developed at the University of Iowa. VIDA sold its first investigational system to the University of Innsbruck in Austria.
During 2006 VIDA consolidated its previous applications, PASS Emphysema Profiler and Pulmonary Workstation, to provide densitometry and airway analysis in one 
software application. It was also named Outstanding Start-up Company of 2006 by the Technology Association of Iowa. The momentum has continued as many research institutions, emerging lung therapy companies and major respiratory drug companies have used VIDA's software to analyze thousands of lung CT scans for a wide variety of research purposes and clinical trials. Today VIDA Diagnostics has emerged as the leader in pulmonary image analysis and therapy planning.
