GE announces India's first IDC

BANGALORE: GE

Healthcare, a division of the General Electric Company today announced the

opening of its first Integrated Development Centre (IDC) at the Manipal Hospital

here.






The IDC is expected to create an opportunity for carrying out complex trials
more efficiently and effectively, and thereby helping bring new diagnostic

pharmaceuticals to market sooner.






The IDC in Bangalore is expected to conduct around 1, 000 scans annually as part
of the planned clinical trials and will be a part of a series of global

multi-country clinical studies in the United States, the European Union and

several other countries. Over time, GE Healthcare will create more IDCs in key

strategic locations globally.






The research efforts of GE Healthcare's Medical Diagnostics R&D team are
currently focused on functional and molecular imaging agents that help doctors

evaluate the physiology of disease and make treatment decisions earlier with

confidence.






Information obtained from this site will be combined with data from other
centres globally and contribute towards the development of new contrast and

molecular imaging agents or new indications for existing agents.






The first studies will focus on Visipaque (iodixanol), an isosmolar contrast
agent that was launched globally by GE Healthcare in 1996. Visipaque has been

used in millions of x-ray and computer tomography procedures till date.






Under the terms of the collaboration, physicians at Manipal Hospital will act as
study investigators and provide clinical and imaging services and administration

in the hospital.






The IDC will play a crucial role in GE Healthcare's ongoing global clinical
research programme and support its vision of “Ëarly Health” by helping to

bring new diagnostic imaging agents to market and working to address serious

unmet medical needs in neurology, oncology and cardiology.






Manipal Hospital will conduct clinical research trials using a wide range of GE
Healthcare's innovative diagnostic imaging technologies.






Dan Peters, president and CEO of Medical Diagnostics at GE Healthcare said:
“We want to use our unique abilities in biology and engineering to develop

novel imaging agents that will provide groundbreaking molecular diagnostic

options for physicians and their patients.”






On choosing India, Peters mentioned that huge population with disease profile,
good health care professionals, growing health infrastructure and cost

effectives amongst others were responsible for their decision.






The benefits of this partnership include innovation, multi-national clinical
studies, increased investment and will also expedite local registration.






V Raja, president and CEO, GE Healthcare South Asia said that together they
could create one of the most advanced integrated Development centers in the

world.






Dr. Ranjan Pai, chief executive officer, Manipal Education and Medical group
said “GE Healthcare has been our partner for a number of years and we are

excited to team up with them again to drive such an important programme

forward.”






On Manipal Hospital having adopted imaging services of GE for more than a
decade, Basil, director and CEO of Manipal Health Systems said that though they

are now based only in South India, they soon plan to expand to Bombay and other

parts of eastern India.






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