GE Healthcare has announced plans to dedicate $1 billion of its total R&D budget over the next five years to expand its advanced cancer diagnostic and molecular imaging offerings, as well as technologies for manufacturing biopharmaceuticals and for cancer research.
The company announced the investment, along with a $100 million open innovation challenge, in New York City.
The $1 billion R&D push will include the following:
- New carbon-13-based agents for metabolic imaging in collaboration with the University of California, San Francisco. University researchers have just announced results from a study of prostate cancer utilizing GE's carbon-13 technology, where real-time metabolic imaging of a human patient was conducted for the first time.
- Connected oncology workflow through MD Connect, a new thin-client package designed for oncology.
- Cancer diagnostic technology that may give a clearer picture of pathways driving specific tumors. Called multiplexing, the technology could allow pathologists to conduct more than 50 different stains on a single tissue section, according to GE.
- Further development of the company's cellular and subcellular imaging technologies.
- Biopharmaceutical manufacturing for developing new and targeted cancer therapies.
In addition, GE has entered into a three-year partnership with Susan G. Komen for the Cure, under which it will focus on launching screening mammography initiatives in rural Wyoming, Saudi Arabia, and China, with a goal of developing programs that can eventually be used worldwide, according to GE.
In Saudi Arabia, GE will develop and deploy two mobile screening units in Riyadh, with the hope of screening 10,000 women within the first 12 months, beginning in October 2011. In China, GE, Komen, and partners will launch a broad outreach program later this year in the Guangdong province aimed at raising awareness of and compliance with breast cancer screening procedures, GE said.
