Our History
1979
- Dr. Eric Hoffman and colleagues develop three-dimensional X-ray imaging techniques for the assessment of the heart and lungs at the Mayo Clinic’s ground breaking Dynamic Spatial Reconstructor.
1987
- As director of the Cardiothoracic Imaging Research Center in the Department of Radiology of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Hoffman and his team of engineers and computer scientists introduce an integrated software package known as VIDA (Volumetric Information Display & Analysis) for the display and analysis of multi-dimensional imaging data sets derived from x-ray CT and magnetic resonance imaging. (Joseph Reinhardt and Susan Wood collaborated closely with the team, as graduate students at Penn State and Johns Hopkins University respectively.)
1992
- Dr. Hoffman moves to the University of Iowa, forms a very early start-up company known as VIDA Technologies, and begins to collaborate with VIDA Diagnostics' other co-founders. Dr. Junfeng Guo joins Dr. Hoffman and colleagues to evolve the general purpose image display and analysis software, VIDA, into a pulmonary dedicated package (Pulmonary Analysis Software Suite: PASS) motivated in part by the needs of the NIH sponsored National Emphysema Treatment Trial.
2003-2004
- Drs. Geoffrey McLennan, Milan Sonka, and Joseph Reinhardt join Dr. Hoffman as co-founders of a re-organized company dedicated to clinical applications of lung imaging and VIDA receives its first seed stage funding and hires John Garber as CEO and Juerg Tschirren, Ph.D. as director of engineering. VIDA Technologies LLC is reorganized as a Delaware corporation: VIDA Diagnostics Inc.
- Based upon PASS, VIDA’s first product, the Emphysema Profiler, the world’s first commercial, automatic whole-lung densitometer is launched for investigational use
2005
- The Iowa Comprehensive Lung Imaging Center (I-CLIC), a one-of-a-kind facility dedicated to lung imaging and lung function research, is established
- VIDA Diagnostics receives an SBIR grant and launches its second product, the Pulmonary Workstation.
- VIDA sells its first investigational system to the University of Innsbruck in Austria.
- VIDA sells its first domestic investigational system to Washington University in St. Louis
2006
- VIDA consolidates its previous applications, PASS Emphysema Profiler and Pulmonary Workstation.
- VIDA receives recognition as Outstanding Start-up Company of 2006 by the Technology Association of Iowa.
- First analytical services client project delivered
2007
- VIDA closes its series “A” funding and grows to 10 employees
- Pulmonary workatation output chosen as primary end point for 2 significant commercially sponsored clinical trials with over 3,000 subjects
2008
- VIDA obtains FDA 510(k) approval on the Pulmonary Workstation 2 (PW2) software.
- PW2 chosen for use in the NIH-sponsored COPDGene Study
- Susan A. Wood, Ph.D. elected to VIDA’s Board of Directors
2009
- Susan A. Wood, Ph.D becomes President & CEO of VIDA
2010
- Launch of Apollo®. Apollo is VIDA’s comprehensive software solution for the quantitative analysis of pulmonary conditions. Apollo extends the current PW2 from a scientific solution to a product usable and scalable into a clinical environment, addressing many of the current users’ suggestions. Apollo v1.0 is VIDA’s 1st generation product on a Windows-based platform, with significant workflow and dataflow improvements.
- VIDA Diagnostics acquires Quantitative Imaging of Iowa (QI2), Inc.
2011
- VIDA Earns ISO 13485 and CE Certifications.
- VIDA opens first branch office in Silicon Valley, CA.
- VIDA launches Apollo® 1.1
2012
- VIDA appoints Philippe Raffy, Ph.D. Chief Technology Officer
- VIDA earns CMDCAS
Certification.
- Launch of Apollo® 1.2. Apollo® 1.2 showcases improved workflow and dataflow functionality streamlining VIDA's service model, new interactive procedure planning features for lung volume reduction therapies and endobronchial biopsies, and the industry's first automatic lobar fissure integrity scoring application to evaluate collateral ventilation in emphysema patients.
- Terry P. Chang joins VIDA as Vice-President, Marketing
- VIDA expands office in Silicon Valley

