Agfa-Gevaert NV has confirmed it received the letter of intent from Kanteron Systems — and that it will be declining the invitation.

“Following review of the blog post statement, the nonbinding LOI and the public information on Kanteron Systems, Agfa-Gevaert NV’s Management has decided not to engage in discussions with Kanteron Systems at this stage,” the company stated.

The Belgian-based maker of analogue and digital imaging systems and IT solutions for both healthcare and the printing industry did not elaborate on what not engaging “at this stage” meant.

Kanteron Systems had previously confirmed it reached out to make the offer in the September 10 blog post on its site.

“Agfa Healthcare business unit revenues have been stagnant in the last few years,” it advised in its posting.

“However, a deal with Kanteron would allow Agfa to tap into our leading-edge technology, particularly in pathology and genomics, enabling Agfa to take the lead in the new clinical-information-systems-for-precision-medicine market, which is a huge and disruptive long-term growth opportunity,” said Jorge Cortell, Kanteron Systems’ CEO. “Some of Agfa’s largest international distributors have already signed up with Kanteron Systems. It’s time we give the whole Agfa family access to our innovative technology.”

The post also characterized the initial communications as “early stage,” and warned that “there is no certainty as to whether, and under which conditions, Kanteron Systems may make a public tender offer to the shareholders of Agfa-Gevaert NV.”

Unlike more siloed software systems, Kanteron Systems' platform lets clinicians and researchers make use of a unified and modular system that integrates siloed information for more precise diagnostics, offers a unified 360º view of the patient – with all required tools like zoom, pan, annotate, compare, measure, graph, etc. – can be accessed via any browser without any specially installed client software, is not restricted by user or device licenses, and can either run locally or in the cloud. It is also open-source, according to the company website.

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