MILWAUKEE — GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), today announced a unique industry collaboration that will advance women’s healthcare and transform the way doctors treat uterine fibroids, a condition that affects up to 70 percent of all reproductive age women, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

GE and InSightec, a company that develops non-invasive therapy systems, will collaborate to deliver to the market the world’s first magnetic resonance (MR) image guided focused ultrasound system. InSightec’s ExAblate 2000 system, approved today by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), works exclusively in combination with GE’s Signa MR system to non-invasively treat symptomatic uterine fibroids.

"Our collaboration with InSightec demonstrates GE’s commitment to both advancing women’s healthcare and to investing in innovative technologies that will change the way healthcare is delivered to patients,” said Joe Hogan, president and CEO of GE Healthcare Technologies.

Today’s FDA approval also marks the first recommendation for a MR guided focused ultrasound system in the United States. The European Union granted the ExAblate 2000 its CE mark and ISO 9001, paving the way for treatment sites in Europe, Israel and Japan. GE is an equity shareholder in InSightec.

Uterine Fibroids – The Need for a Non-Invasive Treatment

According to NIH, uterine fibroids are the most common, non-cancerous tumors in women of childbearing age and the second most common reason reproductive women undergo surgery. Uterine fibroids, the cause of more than 200,000 hysterectomies every year, have no known cause and only a few treatment options, also according to NIH.

According to a report by RAND Corporation, an international non-profit research organization, direct costs associated with treating uterine fibroids are more than $1 billion annually.

Traditionally, treatment options for uterine fibroids have included invasive and minimally invasive procedures such as hysterectomy, myomectomy or uterine artery embolization (UAE). Hormonal therapy, the only non-invasive treatment available, offers only temporary relief of symptoms, and fibroids frequently grow back once therapy is terminated.

“What’s most gratifying about GE’s contribution to the ExAblate 2000 system is knowing that millions of women around the world afflicted with fibroids will now have an opportunity to treat their symptoms non-surgically, dramatically reducing their recovery time,” said Hogan.

About the ExAblate 2000 System and Focused Ultrasound Technology

The ExAblate System integrates focused ultrasound thermal ablation with GE’s MR imaging capabilities to provide a non-invasive method for destroying, or ablating, targeted tissue. ExAblate 2000, which attaches to a standard 1.5 Tesla GE MR imaging system used in many hospitals, is only compatible with GE’s MR systems.

The ExAblate 2000 in combination with GE’s MR system allows physicians to locate and measure the size of a tumor before precisely ablating it through concentrated sound wave energy, without incision. It also gives doctors real-time therapy planning capabilities through tools that monitor thermal effects, ensuring the procedure’s efficacy and the patient’s safety.

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies that will shape a new age of patient care. GE Healthcare’s expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, disease research, drug discovery and biopharmaceuticals is dedicated to detecting disease earlier and tailoring treatment for individual patients. GE Healthcare offers a broad range of services to improve productivity in healthcare and enable healthcare providers to better diagnose, treat and manage patients with conditions such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular diseases.

GE Healthcare is a $14 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) that is headquartered in the United Kingdom. Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 42,500 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries.

About InSightec

InSightec Image Guided Treatment Ltd. is a privately held company owned by Elbit Medical Imaging (EMI), General Electric, private investors, and employees. It was founded in 1999 to develop the breakthrough MR guided Focused Ultrasound technology and transform it into the next generation operating room. Headquartered near Haifa, Israel, the company has over 80 employees and has invested more than $60 million in research, development, and clinical investigations. Its US headquarters are located in Dallas, Texas. ExAblate was awarded the 2004 grand prize of the IST (Information Society Technology) of the European Union for innovation and potential to serve mankind. For more information, please go to www.insightec.com.