ARA & GE....next...GE’s strategic alliance with ART will focus on the development of new optical molecular imaging applications. As part of the agreement, GE will make a minority equity investment in ART and help market, manufacture and distribute ART’s SoftScan® optical breast imaging system, and develop with ART new optical molecular imaging applications. SoftScan produces a functional image that can depict blood volumes and blood oxygen content simultaneously. With this information, it is believed that practitioners will be able to see anomalies in the breast that previously went undetected and will, in turn, be better able to determine whether a tumor is malignant or benign.
“When we combine SoftScan technology with GE Healthcare’ breakthrough technologies like the Senographe® 2000D full-field digital mammography system, we believe cancer detection will improve dramatically,” said Dow Wilson, general manager of Global Diagnostic X-ray at GE Healthcare. “We expect that SoftScan will provide more accurate images of dense breast tissues and breast tissue of women that have undergone hormonal therapy.” GE Healthcare will also begin work to determine how ART’s SoftScan technology translates into future applications including head, abdomen and prostate imaging.
Added GE Healthcare’ Stahre, “We believe optical imaging will play a significant role in early drug discovery and development. We expect the collaboration with ART will deliver new tools to accelerate drug development and impact the delivery of molecular medicine."