Shares of IMRIS off to fast start in 2015

Shares of IMRIS (IMRIS Stock Quote, Chart, News: TSX:IM, Nasdaq:IMRS) are up 18.2% today, a result shareholders must be growing used to in 2015.

Since January 9th, when its shares closed at $0.72, IMRIS has nearly doubled, currently trading at $1.30. Those looking for a reason for the recent surge can probably point to the company’s press release of January 20th, when it announced that the VISIUS surgical theatre would be integrated among four hybrid operating suites Siemens Healthcare recently sold to Sahlgrenska University Hospital.

IMRIS boss Jay Miller said the small dual-listed device-maker worked closely with the healthcare division of the German multinational.

“This represents the close and progressing global collaboration IMRIS has with Siemens Healthcare to bring advanced imaging to the operating environment,” he said. “Already many of the top neuroscience centres around the world are making intraoperative MR their standard of care.”

IMRIS was founded in 1998 in order to commercialize research done by MRI pioneer Dr. Garnette Sutherland at the University of Calgary. The company, which now has more than forty patents either issued or pending, designs and manufactures Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems for use in operating rooms. The company’s VISIUS Surgical Theatre can incorporate MR imaging, CT imaging and x-ray angiography in a number of configurations. While at cost of up to $12 million each, they’re not cheap, but the units do allow an MR or CT scanner to be shared by more than one clinical suite, meaning they can prove to be more economical than current solutions.

Until 2012, IMRIS was based in Winnipeg, but the company moved its operations to Minneapolis that year.