TORONTO, CANADA - GE Healthcare announced today a new collaboration with the Department of Radiology at Stanford University School of Medicine to develop novel molecular imaging technologies. Molecular imaging enables clinicians to make earlier diagnoses and better monitor therapies than traditional imaging technologies. Today’s announcement was made at the Society for Nuclear Medicine’s 52nd Annual Meeting in Toronto, Canada.

The five-year partnership, which will be headquartered at Stanford, brings together clinicians, biologists, chemists and medical physicists from both organizations to create innovative imaging technologies and molecular probes. Together, GE and Stanford researchers will work to identify and develop biomarkers of disease states, design targeted molecular imaging probes, and develop diagnostic imaging and in-vitro diagnostics technologies.

“We’re investing in the future of healthcare and this collaboration embodies our vision of accelerating personalized medicine from discovery to clinic,” said Joe Hogan, CEO of GE Healthcare Technologies. “The ability to examine and understand the underlying pathways of the disease in their fundamental stages has the potential to lead to a number of advancements in medicine, including earlier detection of disease, the development of more targeted therapies, and the ability to monitor treatment more effectively.”

GE Healthcare will provide extensive technology resources for the collaboration, including a state-of-the-art GE PETrace Cyclotron, a suite of PET radiochemistry research equipment and preclinical imaging technologies. GE researchers will also work closely with Stanford scientists.

Stanford will expand its radiology department through the construction of a new, state of the art laboratory that will house the research cyclotron, high field MR equipment and a PET radiochemistry laboratory built according to cGMP standards. It will also continue recruiting faculty, staff and students.

“We look forward to collaborating with GE Healthcare in accelerating applications of our discoveries into patient care,” said Gary M. Glazer, MD, Professor and Chair of Stanford’s Department of Radiology, adding that this collaboration is the first of a number of planned partnerships. "No one department or corporation on its own can rapidly transition concepts from the laboratory to the clinic, so we’ve collectively embraced the idea of interdisciplinary programs and partnerships."

Leaders in Academia and Industry

The collaborative partners each have significant molecular medicine experience. GE Healthcare is an industry leader in designing and manufacturing high-resolution, high-sensitivity medical imaging equipment. Stanford’s radiology department recently made a significant commitment to its molecular imaging program by building state-of-the-art research facilities and recruiting Sanjiv Sam Gambhir, MD, PhD and other scientists.

“The goals of our program are to fundamentally change how biological research is performed and to develop new ways to diagnose diseases and monitor therapies in patients,” said Gambhir, Director of the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS) (http://mips.stanford.edu), Head of Nuclear Medicine and Professor of Radiology and the Bio-X Program.

“The more we understand about the molecular pathways of disease, the better equipped we are to create more effective methods and tools for diagnosing, treating and monitoring disease,” said Alexander Tokman, General Manager of GE Healthcare’s Radiopharmacy and Molecular Imaging business. “This partnership opens an exciting opportunity for Stanford and GE to accelerate the development of new targeted diagnostic imaging tracers and assays."

The GE – Stanford collaboration is the latest in a series of partnerships between the two organizations. GE is a corporate sponsor of Stanford’s Global Climate and Energy Project, a major research initiative investigating the deployment of new energy technologies to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

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 biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is dedicated to detecting disease earlier and helping physicians tailor 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, neurological 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.