GE Healthcare Re-Imagines Molecular Imaging at SNM Conference; Company Showcases Transformational Medical Technologies and Biological Advancements that Contribute to Improved Patient Care.

SAN DIEGO -- GE Healthcare's Combined Expertise in Life Science, IT and Engineering Helps Clinicians Detect Disease Earlier, so Patients can Live their Lives to the Fullest

GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), today kicked off its participation in the 2006 Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM) conference in San Diego, highlighting the company's Molecular Imaging advances that improve and speed the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of a wide range of disease.

"GE Healthcare is the most enabled company in the world to combine biology, chemistry and technology in order to detect disease earlier, before the manifestation of symptoms," said Joe Hogan, president and CEO of GE Healthcare. "By revealing the early presence or likelihood of disease, GE's leading molecular imaging capability has the potential to revolutionize effectiveness and cost of patient care."

During SNM, GE is showcasing a broad range of technological and biological evolutions in imaging that help healthcare providers to understand the molecular root of diseases and explore the new paths for detecting, treating and monitoring illnesses earlier.

GE's work on nuclear, Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography (PET/CT), ultrasound, optical and Magnetic Resonance (MR) imaging technologies, in association with new types of targeted molecular imaging agents, makes it possible for doctors to locate and treat disease earlier. In addition, GE's portfolio of targeted molecular diagnostics can help track the effectiveness of drugs and monitor a patient's response to new therapies. With access to GE's isotope production, chemistry, informatics and services, researchers will be able to reduce the cost and time of developing new drugs making them available for doctors and patients more quickly.

"GE Healthcare's leadership in molecular imaging continues to attract partners from the pharmaceutical industry and academic centers of excellence worldwide, who are interested in enhancing drug development and helping to transform the future of healthcare," said Jean-Luc Vanderheyden, global molecular imaging leader at GE Healthcare. "Last year alone, we estimate that 80 percent of the PET molecular imaging applications originated from GE or GE collaborations. With more physicists, biologists, radiochemists and engineers than any other company in the world, we are developing in vitro diagnostic tests, combined with new targeted in vivo molecular imaging agents and sophisticated detection equipment, to provide fresh insight on health and disease management."

To make these medical breakthroughs a reality, GE is highlighting at SNM a number of academic and pharmaceutical collaborations to help affect change, including:

--Roche - Roche and GE Healthcare are working together to develop personalized care for patients with Alzheimer's disease. In controlled clinical trials, patients taking a Roche anti-amyloid drug candidate for Alzheimer's disease will be monitored clinically for drug response using GE's positron emission tomography (PET) molecular diagnostic imaging agent. This proprietary PET technology measures and tracks levels of beta-amyloid, a form of brain plaque believed to be associated with memory loss in Alzheimer's disease patients.

--Eli Lilly - Eli Lilly and GE Healthcare are also collaborating to accelerate the discovery and development of new diagnostics and therapeutics for Alzheimer's disease. As part of the agreement, GE Healthcare will have access to Lilly's extensive molecular libraries to search for compounds that would be promising for use as targeted molecular diagnostic imaging agents for Alzheimer's disease. Lilly would have access to any targeted molecular diagnostic agents developed by GE under this collaboration to use in discovery, development and validation of Alzheimer's disease therapeutics from the early research phase through clinical trials.

--Merck - Through our imaging network Imanet, GE Healthcare helped Merck develop and validate the anti-nausea drug Emend(R) (aprepitant) which is designed specifically to help prevent the nausea that cancer patients experience as a side effect of chemotherapy. GE Healthcare's PET imaging expertise and specialized research techniques helped establish dose and efficacy during the development of this drug, which has since been brought to market for use in cancer indications.

"GE has the expertise, broad product portfolio and the imagination to help transform the current model of healthcare through advances in molecular imaging," said Vanderheyden. "That future is about evolving the practice of medicine and patient care from treating symptomatic 'late-stage' disease to a focus on earlier pre-symptomatic detection and intervention, and GE Healthcare is leading the way with real investment and real results."

Imanet is GE's unique imaging network that develops validated molecular imaging agents into highly targeted and non-invasive diagnostics. Its business is to provide pharmaceutical and biotech companies with imaging solutions to accelerate and facilitate the discovery and development of novel therapeutics. Imanet uses PET, a quantitative imaging technology that provides information on biochemical and physiological processes and drug-receptor interactions at a molecular level. Imanet also works with academic institutions and research organizations and recently signed a $40 million dollar, 5 year extension of their current agreement with the Imperial College and the Medical Research Council (MRC) in London to conduct PET research that will help solve the clinical problems these researchers face.

GE Healthcare recently announced the first installation of the company's new Discovery VCT, the world's first true 64-slice combination positron emission tomography and volume computed tomography (PET/CT) system for cardiac imaging applications at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. GE's new Discovery VCT has the potential to transform the way physicians diagnose and treat heart disease and other life-threatening illnesses.

GE Healthcare's next generation single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT/CT) hybrid system, the Infinia Hawkeye 4, is providing speed and quality enhancements that can expand the boundaries of nuclear medicine at several institutions. The Infinia Hawkeye 4 combines GE's industry-leading Infinia gamma camera with an optimized 4-slice CT in a continuum platform that is fully optimized for nuclear medicine departments and providing physicians with a seamless upgrade.

About GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, performance improvement, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping clinicians around the world re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, inform and treat disease, so their patients can live their lives to the fullest.

GE Healthcare's broad range of products and services enable healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases, and other conditions earlier. Our vision for the future is to enable a new "early health" model of care focused on earlier diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection and disease prevention. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $15 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 43,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.