Butterfly Network’s iQ3™ Honored as the Best Medical Technology at 2024 Prix Galien USA Awards

BURLINGTON, Mass. & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov 8, 2024--

Butterfly Network, Inc. (“Butterfly”) (NYSE: BFLY), a digital health company transforming care through the power of portable, semiconductor-based ultrasound technology and intuitive software, today announced that Butterfly iQ3™, its third-generation handheld ultrasound device, was the recipient of the Best Medical Technology Award at the 2024 Prix Galien USA Awards by the Galien Foundation.

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The Galien Foundation was established to foster and reward outstanding achievements in improving the global human condition through the development of innovative drugs and other treatments. First created in 1970 in honor of Galien, the father of medical science and modern pharmacology, the Prix Galien Awards have since grown into an influential program convening healthcare stakeholders across industry, science, government and medical press worldwide. The Prix Galien Awards are regarded as the “Nobel Prize of Life Sciences,” and the highest accolade for healthcare research and development.

This prestigious recognition highlights Butterfly’s commitment to making ultrasound imaging more affordable, sustainable, and scalable through its pioneering Ultrasound-on-Chip™ technology. The Butterfly iQ3 represents a leap forward in ultrasound technology, building upon the success of its predecessors with enhanced AI-powered features and novel digital image capture capabilities. Built on Butterfly’s proprietary P4.3 semiconductor – its most powerful Ultrasound-on-Chip™ platform released to date – the iQ3 represents a digital revolution in the ultrasound industry by offering clinicians portable, semiconductor-based imaging with premium handheld quality.

“Winning the Prix Galien Award for Best Medical Technology is an extraordinary testament to the hard work and dedication of our team that brought iQ3 to market this year,” said Joseph DeVivo, President, Chief Executive Officer, and Board Chairman of Butterfly Network. “Our Ultrasound-on-Chip™ technology harnesses the exponential advancements of Moore’s Law, allowing us to deliver increasingly powerful and cost-effective imaging tools. By leveraging this innovation, we are democratizing ultrasound, enabling practitioners everywhere to make faster, more accurate decisions, and ultimately transforming patient care on a global scale.”

Alongside Butterfly, this year’s awardees across various categories includes Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Daiichi Sankyo US, and other highly respected industry leaders.

In today’s announcement, Michael Rosenblatt, MD, Chair of the Prix Galien USA Awards Committee, Former Dean of Tufts University School of Medicine, and former Chief Medical Officer of Merck & Co. Inc., commented, "The Awards Committee is honored to witness the exceptional dedication and creativity of our nominees as they turn visionary ideas into transformative solutions for patients worldwide. Their unwavering commitment to advancing patient care is truly commendable, and we are honored to celebrate their outstanding contributions to global health.”

Butterfly is honored to be recognized as the Best Medical Technology against a world-class group of nominees. To view the full list of 2024 nominees, visit: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-galien-foundation-announces-2024-prix-galien-usa-nominees-for-best-digital-health-solution-best-medical-technology-incubators-accelerators-and-equity-and-best-startup-302220657.html.

About the Galien Foundation

The Galien Foundation fosters, recognizes and rewards excellence in scientific innovation to improve the state of human health. Our vision is to be the catalyst for the development of the next generation of innovative treatments and technologies that will impact the state of medical practice and save lives.

The Foundation oversees and directs activities in the US for the Prix Galien, an international awards program dedicated to progress through innovative medicines development, with chapters in 14 countries and Africa. The Prix Galien was created in 1970 by Roland Mehl in honor of Galien, the father of medical science and modern pharmacology. Worldwide, the Prix Galien is regarded as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in biopharmaceutical research.

About Butterfly Network

Founded by Dr. Jonathan Rothberg in 2011, Butterfly Network is a digital health company with a mission to democratize medical imaging by making high-quality ultrasound affordable, easy-to-use, globally accessible, and intelligently connected, including for the 4.7 billion people around the world lacking access to ultrasound. Butterfly created the world's first handheld single-probe, whole-body ultrasound system using semiconductor technology, Butterfly iQ. The company has continued to innovate, leveraging the benefits of Moore’s Law, to launch its second-generation Butterfly iQ+ in 2020, and third generation iQ3 in 2024 – each with increased processing power and performance enhancements. The disruptive technology has been recognized by TIME’s Best Inventions, Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas, CNBC Disruptor 50, and MedTech Breakthrough Awards, among other accolades. With its proprietary Ultrasound-on-Chip™ technology, intelligent software, and educational offerings, Butterfly is paving the way to mass adoption of ultrasound for earlier detection and remote management of health conditions around the world. Butterfly devices are commercially available to trained healthcare practitioners in areas including, but not limited to, parts of Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, North America and South America; to learn more about available countries, visit: www.butterflynetwork.com/choose-your-country.

Butterfly Network's Chief Executive Officer, Joseph DeVivo; Co-Founder & VP of Core Technology, Nevada Sanchez; and Chief Strategy Officer, Darius Shahida, accept the Prix Galien USA Best Medical Technology Award. (Photo: Business Wire)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA announced more delays Thursday in sending astronauts back to the moon more than 50 years after Apollo.

Administrator Bill Nelson said the next mission in the Artemis program -- sending four astronauts around the moon and back – is now targeted for April 2026. It had been on the books for September 2025, after slipping from this year.

The investigation into heat shield damage from the capsule's initial test flight two years ago took time, officials said, and other spacecraft improvements are still needed.

This bumps the third Artemis mission — a moon landing by two other astronauts — to at least 2027. NASA had been aiming for 2026.

NASA’s Artemis program, a follow-up to the Apollo moonshots of the late 1960s and early 1970s, has completed only one mission. An empty Orion capsule circled the moon in 2022 after blasting off on NASA’s new Space Launch System rocket.

Although the launch and lunar laps went well, the capsule returned with an excessively charred and eroded bottom heat shield, damaged from the heat of reentry. It took until recently for engineers to pinpoint the cause and come up with a plan.

NASA will use the Orion capsule with its original heat shield for the next flight with four astronauts, according to Nelson, but make changes to the reentry path at flight's end. To rip off and replace the heat shield would have meant at least a full year's delay, officials said.

During the flight test, the capsule dipped in and out of the atmosphere during reentry and heat built up in the shield’s outer layer, explained Pam Melroy, NASA deputy administrator. That resulted in cracking and uneven shedding of the outer layer.

The commander of the lunar fly-around, astronaut Reid Wiseman, took part in Thursday’s news conference at NASA headquarters in Washington. His crew includes NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

“Delays are agonizing and slowing down is agonizing and it’s not what we like to do,” Wiseman said. But he said he and his crew wanted the heat shield damage from the first flight to be fully understood, regardless of how long it took.

Twenty-four astronauts flew to the moon during NASA's vaulted Apollo program, with 12 landing on it. The final bootprints in the lunar dust were made during Apollo 17 in December 1972.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

FILE - This file photo provided by NASA shows, from left, NASA Astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Jeremy Hansen at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, March 29, 2023. (Josh Valcarcel/NASA via AP)

FILE - NASA's Orion capsule is drawn to the well deck of the USS Portland after it splashed down following a successful uncrewed Artemis I moon mission, in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, Dec. 11, 2022. (Mario Tama via AP File)