Medical Device Link.

COVER STORY

Growing knowledge of the molecular underpinnings of disease is leading to the development of targeted therapies that hold promise for greater efficacy and fewer side effects. GE Healthcare (Chalfont St. Giles, UK) has initiated a number of academic and pharmaceutical collaborations focused on using diagnostic imaging to better tailor the development of therapeutics.

"GE Healthcare's pharmaceutical collaborations can help transform the current model of healthcare through advances in molecular imaging," says Joseph M. Hogan, president and CEO of GE Healthcare. "That future is about evolving the practice of medicine and patient care from treating symptomatic late-stage disease to a focus on earlier presymptomatic detection and intervention, and GE Healthcare is leading the way with real investment and real results." GE Healthcare's pharma collaborations include the following.

• Roche (Basel, Switzerland) and GE Healthcare are working together to improve diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease. In clinical trials, patients taking a Roche drug candidate for Alzheimer's will be monitored for drug response using GE Healthcare's positron emission tomography (PET) molecular diagnostic system.
• GE Healthcare is also collaborating with Eli Lilly and Co. (Indianapolis) to gain a better understanding of the treatment and diagnosis of Alzheimer's. Eli Lilly is using GE Healthcare's molecular diagnostics in its discovery, development, and validation of Alzheimer's therapeutics. In turn, the company allows GE Healthcare access to Eli Lilly's molecular libraries to search for additional potential targeted molecular diagnostic candidates.
• GE Healthcare helped Merck & Co. Inc. (Whitehouse Station, NJ) develop and validate Merck's drug, Emend, which helps prevent nausea as a side effect of chemotherapy in cancer patients. GE Healthcare used its PET imaging network, Imanet, to aid Merck in establishing the optimum dose and efficacy for the drug.