GE Medical and Amersham Sharpen Their Molecular Image
Executive Summary
With a surge in interest in molecular imaging, GE Medical Systems has been on the prowl for new technologies that improve performance of its PET and SPECT systems, so that clinicians can obtain information at the subcellular level. Amersham Health, too, has been been looking for better systems to help improve distribution and performance of its radiopharmaceutical labeling agents. Now the two are joining forces to create a next-generation compound for PET using new, easier-to-use chemistries.
At an analyst's meeting in November, John Padfield, PhD, chief executive of Amersham Health , the diagnostic imaging subsidiary of Amersham PLC , outlined his company's future in molecular diagnostics. For a maker of contrast agents, the terminology seemed like a leap, but diagnostic imaging companies all over are jumping on the molecular imaging bandwagon, citing the need to understand the causes, not just symptoms of disease.
Certainly, General Electric Co. 's GE Medical Systems has been doing that. Ever since it created a molecular imaging business last year, GE has been prowling for new technologies and ways to push existing technologies further, so clinicians can obtain information at the subcellular level. (See "GE-Genometrix: Diagnostic Imaging Meets Genomics," IN VIVO, May 2001. [A#2001800096) Now, the companies have found a way to collaborate on development of positron emission tomography (PET) imaging technologies, which are useful for molecular diagnostics because of their sensitivity.
Their first project will be development of a PET synthesis system that can produce targeted molecular radiopharmaceuticals. The collaborators aim to deliver a next-generation series of compounds for PET using new chemistries that make it easier for hospitals to generate PET compounds. Currently, highly trained, PhD-level scientists are required to generate PET compounds on site at hospitals. But Amersham has a proprietary technology, which allows less skilled hospital workers to mix the components into a single dose injection of a PET contrast agent. "In the future, you won't need to be a chemist to produce the right imaging agent," says William Clarke, MD, EVP, R&D, Amersham Health.
The deal is Amersham's first with an instrument maker; while makers of imaging equipment and contrast agents might have been able to work independently in the past, they can't with molecular technologies, which require joint fine-tuning of systems and pharmaceuticals, says Clarke. Not only does the deal further Amersham's efforts in molecular imaging, it also boosts its low profile, since GE is the world's largest maker of imaging systems.
Interest in this collaboration started late last winter, shortly after Clarke left GlaxoSmithKline to work at Amersham. At GSK, he had put together a deal with GE in the field of pulmonary disease, which the companies announced earlier this fall. Amersham wasn't well-known, but Clarke thought GE would be extremely interested in its novel technologies.
Although no money is changing hands, both parties see huge opportunities for future growth. Imaging companies have been able to visualize disease at the cellular level with standard contrast agents. But they need new kinds of agents to get to the subcellular level, says Eric Stahre, general manager, genomics and molecular imaging at GE Medical Systems. And while in vitro diagnostics can provide sub-cellular information, in vivo molecular diagnostics can do so in real time, at the site of interest. Amersham has a large franchise and good technical capabilities for drug discovery and development, he says. And GE, for its part, is the world's largest supplier of imaging systems, Clarke points out.
The best ways to image at the subcellular level are PET and SPECT, both of which have supersensitive visualization. PET usage is growing exponentially worldwide. Since getting into the business in 1993, GE has shipped 200 PET scanners, half of them this year, says Stahre, and now has a one-year backlog of orders. Demand is especially great in the US, where a government study concluded the technology, while expensive, is cost effective in the seven to nine diseases for which it is approved. As a result, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (formerly HCFA) began reimbursing the procedure at attractive rates, in effect almost instantaneously creating a booming market.
Current PET synthesis systems that interface with cyclotrons are capable of generating just one radiopharmaceutical, 18 F-fluoro-deoxyglucose (FDG). FDG is a generic radiopharmaceutical, which is sold by a number of companies and has a very short half-life. The first use of the Amersham technology will be for diagnosing Parkinson's disease and will involve the use of FDG and an L-dopa receptor-based contrast agent.
PET will be used for earlier and more refined diagnosis of disease. While initial results will be images, Clarke foresees a day when imaging technologies will produce numerical results, similar to those produced by in vitro diagnostics today, which providers can read and interpret on their own.
For more than a year, Amersham has also been selling a molecular imaging agent in Europe—Datscan, which binds to a specific dopamine receptor and is useful in determining whether patients with movement disorders have Parkinson's disease—that can be read with a SPECT system. The agent is not sold in the US because it uses an iodine component that is difficult to distribute across a large country with a spread-out health care system. Datscan is the first of a new generation of contrast agents, which will have high affinity and bind to molecular targets, Clarke says.
The deal is non-exclusive because the companies want people to have broad access to both technologies. Amersham is talking with other companies about other types of molecular imaging.