The Open News

Canon taking control of Saanichton chipmaker Redlen in $345M deal

The firm focuses on ­manufacturing the kinds of semiconductors utilized in ­medical imaging systems also as ­baggage scanners.

Redline CEO Glenn Bindley said he’s excited about the ­potential for the Canon takeover to assist his company to expand both its physical footprint and its headcount within the coming years.

“It’s an exciting ­development for us because we will see what proportion they will help us within the areas where we’re weak,” he said, adding Redlen ­leadership are going to be sticking around to ­oversee expansion plans within the coming years.

“Now we got to scale it up and drive the prices down and that they can help us therein area.”

Canon came on as a ­strategic investor back in 2018 and ­Bindley said the new parent company is fully on board with Redlen’s $40-million decision to ­double its 50,000-square-foot manufacturing facility.

Meanwhile, the Saanichton company is going to be expanding its headcount from 200 ­workers to 450 workers by 2025 because it hires experts in everything from ­automation to product ­engineering.

“In many respects, it’s easier to bring people into Victoria than it's to Vancouver because there's a touch little bit of a plus in terms of cost of living,” Bindley said.

Canon is going to be using Redlen’s cadmium zinc telluride chips as a part of its efforts to launch the next generation of CT (computer tomography) systems.

Bindley likened current CT systems to a camera with a one-megapixel capacity which will only shoot in black and white. subsequent generation referred to as ­photon-counting CT scanners, would be the equivalent of upgrading to a camera with 10 megapixels which will shoot fully color.

“If you think that of the car industry, there’s a transformation from combustion to electric vehicles. CT is during a similar situation,” Bindley said.

Redline's chips would essentially allow Canon’s medical devices to require clearer images while exposing patients to lower X-ray radiation levels.

Last month, Canon Medical Systems Corp. — a customer of Redlen’s and a subsidiary of Canon Inc. — announced it had been launching its first trial of those next-generation medical imaging systems as a part of a search project with Japan’s national cancer center.

Redline's chips are going to be deployed within the new ­technology as a part of the trial.

“It goes to form an enormous difference to only innumerable patients,” Bindley said.

Vancouver-based Pangaea Ventures Ltd. previously led a $5.5-million financing round for Redline back in 2014 and owns 20% of the corporate before the official close of the acquisition, expected at the top of the month.

“They stepped in and led the round to tug us back from the brink and recapitalize the corporate,” Bindley said, about a crash crunch Redlen faced during early efforts to commercialize.