The long-awaited spinoff of GE's healthcare division is scheduled to be completed in the first week of January 2023. The new GE HealthCare will focus on enabling precision healthcare, GE executives said September 12 at the Morgan Stanley Healthcare Conference.
GE HealthCare will be a public company with a focus on utilizing integrated clinical care, connected technology, and data to facilitate personalized and precision healthcare, according to Peter Arduini, who will serve as president and CEO. Arduini has been president and CEO of GE's healthcare business since January.
"The more precise you can be in diagnosis and knowing those nuances [in individual patients], the better the diagnosis and the earlier the diagnosis," Arduini said. "That translates then into a more customized, personalized therapy approach as well, and then also a specific way of monitoring and managing [the patient], particularly if it's a chronic disease."
The goal is better -- and earlier -- outcomes for patients. And precision healthcare is also more cost-effective for the healthcare system, as it enables expensive therapeutics and devices to be utilized more precisely, he said.
The healthcare spinoff is over four years in the making. GE initially announced its plan to separate into three separate companies in June 2018. The vendor later confirmed the plan in 2021 and announced the name of the new company in July.
In support of the spinoff, GE plans to host an Investor Day in New York City on December 8. When the spinoff is completed, the newly independent GE HealthCare will trade on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the symbol "GEHC."
As an independent company, GE HealthCare is poised to produce consistent revenue growth in the mid-single-digits, benefitting from a number of interesting trends as the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, Arduini said.
For example, an aging population around the world -- and an increase in chronic disease or follow-up on musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and oncology conditions -- requires more procedures and advanced capabilities, many of which GE HealthCare provides, he said.
New products developed from the company's investment in R&D will spark continued revenue growth, as well as help to increase the company's margins from 16.7% in 2021 to a range of high teens to 20%, according to Arduini.
"It really is a great value creation story where we can be a consistent grower," he said. "We've got innovation and market dynamics that are going to continue to push that, and also will drive margins with it. And I believe for investors, the [spin-off] really unlocks a lot of value that's inherited in what is GE HealthCare."
In current market trends, Arduini said that the company has not seen any evidence of any significant customer pullback in capital spending for the second half of the year.
"In fact, we're expecting an acceleration in the second half," he said. "And we've got a healthy revenue base and our backlog is quite solid and also our ability to see what the order book actually looks like."
In other September 12 announcements, GE HealthCare also announced its board of directors, which will include the following:
- Lawrence Culp Jr. (nonexecutive chairman): chairman and CEO, GE, and CEO of GE Aerospace
- Peter Arduini: president and CEO of GE HealthCare
- Dr. Rodney Hochman: president and CEO of Providence, a Catholic not-for-profit healthcare system
- Lloyd Howell Jr.: chief financial officer (CFO) and treasurer of Booz Allen Hamilton
- Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey: formerly a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an independent director for GE
- Catherine Lesjak: former interim chief operating officer (COO) of HP
- Anne Madden: senior vice president and general counsel at Honeywell International
- Dr. Tomislav Mihaljevic: CEO and president of Cleveland Clinic
- William Stromberg: director of the T. Rowe Price Group
- Phoebe Yang: general manager of Amazon Web Services, Healthcare
