GE Healthcare Acquires Image Diagnost International GMBH

Main Category: Radiology / Nuclear Medicine
Also Included In: MRI / PET / Ultrasound;  Breast Cancer
Article Date: 12 Feb 2008 - 2:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), announced it has acquired Image Diagnost International GmbH, a provider of information technology (IT) systems used in the diagnosis of breast cancer. Image Diagnost's software offering will expand GE Healthcare's capabilities in breast cancer detection, offering clinicians and national screening services one of the most comprehensive ranges of systems available.

Image Diagnost develops integrated software solutions for mammography workflow and image processing. Digital mammography, first commercialized by GE Healthcare in 1999, brings significant benefits to the diagnosis of breast cancer such as improved cancer detection rates for women with dense breast tissue and ease of use. As the number of hospitals, clinics and screening services using digital mammography increases, there is a significant and growing demand for integrated software solutions to facilitate reporting, storage, sharing and transmission of mammography data. Image Diagnost has developed a suite of unique software solutions to meet the needs of this growing demand.

David Caumartin, General Manager of GE Healthcare's Mammography business, said "Image Diagnost and GE Healthcare have a shared vision on how best to accelerate the adoption of digital mammography and to harness the benefits that the new technology brings to the diagnosis and detection of breast cancer. Image Diagnost as a strong track record of customer-focused innovation, demonstrated by the rapid and widespread acceptance of their products by leading European hospitals and breast cancer screening services."

GE Healthcare plans to develop the Image Diagnost facility in Munich, Germany, into a centre of excellence in breast cancer detection software. Caumartin added "The combination of GE Healthcare's skills in the development of imaging equipment together with the expertise of the team at Image Diagnost is a major step forward in assisting hospitals worldwide to use digital mammography to its full potential. Expanding GE Healthcare's expertise in this area supports our Early Health objective of developing tools to help doctors diagnose and treat disease earlier."

Image Diagnost, founded in 2005, has grown rapidly in Germany, and has over 150 installations of its software suites. The company has filed for U.S. FDA approval for its Image Diagnost MammoWorkstationTM.

Dr Wilfried Schneider, founder of Image Diagnost, said "We are very excited to be part of GE Healthcare. The additional resources that GE Healthcare brings will allow us to accelerate our development programs and bring our products to a much wider customer base. The combination of the two companies will bring substantial benefits to hospitals, screening services and women's healthcare worldwide."

About Image Diagnost International GmbH

Image Diagnost develops innovative products optimized for the needs of diagnostic and screening mammography. Our commitment is to meet the demands of radiologists for high quality diagnostic viewing and integrated mammography reporting. To achieve this goal, we work in tight cooperation with expert radiologists in the field of mammography. Our products include the MammoWorkstationTM for multi-vendor reading and reporting of digital mammograms, Advanced Image Processing System for assisted diagnosis and the Collaboration ServerTM for multi center workflow management. All our products integrate seamlessly with existing IT-infrastructures. We implement our projects in joint partnership with manufacturers of mammography modalities, of information systems, and of digital PACS archives, guaranteeing a smooth workflow. Image Diagnost is based in Munich, Germany. For more information about Image Diagnost, visit http://www.imagediagnost.de

Note: Product is not commercially available in the US and is awaiting FDA action on a premarket approval application

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, performance improvement, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping clinicians around the world re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, inform, treat and monitor disease, so patients can live their lives to the fullest.

GE Healthcare's broad range of products and services enable healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases and other conditions earlier. Our vision for the future is to enable a new "early health" model of care focused on earlier diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection and disease prevention. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $17 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 46,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries.

GE Healthcare