GE HealthCare, Mayo Clinic partner to advance theranostics

GE HealthCare announced a strategic partnership with Mayo Clinic dubbed the Strategic Collaboration for Innovation in Medical Imaging and Theranostics, through which the pair will collaborate on research and product development focusing on precision care, AI and theranostics.

Technology developers, clinicians, scientists and other providers from both companies will work together to advance magnetic resonance technologies and techniques, improve cancer care using theranostic agents, enhance diagnostic and interventional ultrasound for ease of use and easier-to-read test results, and employ AI, multimodal data and digital health platforms to streamline the patient care experience. 

“This collaboration between GE HealthCare and Mayo Clinic spans multiple radiological disciplines and brings together clinical research, product development, application of new clinical uses and techniques to advance medical imaging and theranostics. Together, we seek to accelerate diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions, make clinical evaluation simpler, and improve patient access and consistency of care,” Jan Makela, president and CEO of Imaging at GE HealthCare, told MobiHealthNews in an email. 

THE LARGER TREND

Theranostics, a term that combines therapeutics and diagnostics, is an emerging technology. It is a form of precision medicine that fuses diagnostic biomarkers with therapeutic agents to pinpoint and target cancer cells for destruction.

For example, a PET scan can be used to locate cancer within the body, and then a provider can deliver a drug to the specific cancer cells found. Providers know where the drug is going based on the imaging. 

In 2021, GE announced it would spin off its healthcare division, GE Healthcare, in early 2023 as part of a larger effort to separate the nearly 130-year-old industrial giant into three separate public companies.

In November 2022, before the spinout was finalized in January, GE announced over 40 precision innovations it was concentrating on that would drive the future of healthcare, with theranostics being one of its main focus areas.  

Other companies in the theranostics technology space include Cardinal Health, an Ohio-based healthcare products and services company, and Siemens Healthineers, a separately managed healthcare business of technology company Siemens.