University Hospitals, Case Western Reserve University and Siemens Healthineers Celebrate 40-plus Years in Radiology Innovation

CLEVELAND - University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve University recently celebrated a major milestone: more than 40 years of groundbreaking collaboration in radiology among the institutions and Siemens Healthineers. The collaboration — anchored by a unique, long-standing tripartite agreement — has positioned UH and Case Western Reserve as global leaders in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) innovation and helped transform the future of patient care.

At the recent anniversary celebration, UH CEO Cliff A. Megerian, MD, FACS, Jane and Henry Meyer Chief Executive Officer Distinguished Chair, and Case Western Reserve President Eric W. Kaler welcomed distinguished guests, including Bernd Montag, MD, CEO of Siemens Healthineers, Andreas Schneck, Executive Vice President of Magnetic Resonance, and Murat Gungor, Senior Vice President, Diagnostic Imaging North America. Together, they honored the impact of a collaboration that continues to shape the science and practice of medicine.

“This collaboration exemplifies what happens when academia, clinical care, and industry come together with shared purpose,” said Dr. Megerian. “It’s an innovation engine, rooted in trust, built on excellence and always focused on what matters most: our patients.”

“This decades-long collaboration is critical to this type of research, focusing on translating innovation and creativity out of the lab and into the world to best serve patients,” Kaler said. “It represents a global best-practice in industry-university-hospital collaboration.”

A Unique and Enduring Collaboration

Since its inception, the collaboration has focused primarily on MRI research and innovation, with co-Principal Investigators Mark Griswold, PhD, Professor and Pavey Family Chair in Radiology at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, and Jeffrey Sunshine, MD, PhD, UH Chief Medical Information Officer and Executive Vice Chair Radiology, leading the effort locally. A cornerstone of the agreement is Siemens Healthineers’ continued provisioning of state-of-the-art MRI equipment to UH — long before commercial release — enabling the UH-CWRU research team to explore new applications and integrate the latest technology directly into clinical care.

The results speak for themselves: The collaboration has driven more than $100 million in National Institutes of Health funding since 2006, including $64 million since 2020. Siemens Healthineers has also provided more than $15 million in corporate-sponsored research since the agreement was signed.

This collaboration has also produced more than 217 invention disclosures, 136 U.S. patents, and 31 international patents generated by 148 faculty, staff, and students.

Real-World Impact on Patient Care

The collaboration has accelerated the pace at which new MRI technology becomes available to patients — often compressing a typical 15-year adoption curve to just a few years. That means earlier disease detection, more precise diagnosis, and more effective treatment planning across the UH health system.

Among the more groundbreaking advancements to emerge from the collaboration is MR Fingerprinting (MRF), a revolutionary method that uses unique signal "fingerprints" to improve tissue characterization. UH patients with brain and prostate cancer are already benefitting from MRF-guided care, with ongoing research exploring new applications in stroke triage and MRI-guided interventions.

“The standard of care is pushed higher sooner because of this relationship,” said Dr. Sunshine. “We’re not just imagining the future of imaging — we’re building it, right here.”

A Global Footprint

Technologies developed through the UH-CWRU-Siemens Healthineers collaboration have shaped multiple U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved products used worldwide — impacting the care of over 100,000 patients daily, according to Dr. Sunshine.

As Siemens Healthineers continues to advance imaging technology, the collaboration ensures that UH and Case Western Reserve remain early adopters and key contributors. And through a separate, enduring commercial relationship with Siemens Healthineers, UH is able to deploy the most advanced imaging solutions across the health system, improving care well beyond the research setting.

“This collaboration is a model of how basic science developments can be translated through commercial partners to improve our health," Griswold said. "It also demonstrates that for-profit companies like Siemens Healthineers can see decades of benefits from investments in university and early clinical research. We can’t wait to see what the next 40 years brings."

[PHOTO: Image of the Magnetom Free.Max low-helium 0.55T MR scanner. This scanner is one of the products that Siemens Healthineers collaborates on with University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve. CREDIT: Siemens Healthineers.]