A quote from Optics.org: "The business case For all the promise...

A quote from Optics.org:
"The business case
For all the promise of such technologies, Toptica’s Patrick Leisching warned that finding the right business case for the probes to be deployed effectively remains a big challenge.
Looking at the finances of Mauna Kea Technologies and OptiScan, two companies that have taken on the endoscopy world with optical biopsy techniques, Leisching noted that both have had to soak up accumulated losses of around the $50 million mark, largely to overcome regulatory hurdles.
However, for healthcare systems the payback from earlier diagnosis of cancers and therefore cheaper treatment options could be enormous. Looking at ear, nose and throat (ENT) cancers, some of the most obviously accessible to optical techniques, he calculated possible annual savings of €100 million in Germany, where around two-thirds of the 16,000 ENT cancers detected each year require treatment costing around €100,000 per patient.
An effective optical biopsy could cut that proportion to just one-third, reckons Leisching, with the prospect of a much better prognosis for thousands of patients who could then receive treatment costing only around €5000 each."

For full extract see http://optics.org/news/8/6/37