GE Medical Systems Partners with the National Cancer Institute on Groundbreaking Molecular Imaging Drug Trial.

Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers

WAUKESHA, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 24, 2003

GE Medical Radiopharmacy Equipment to Enable PET Imaging

for Earlier Cancer Treatment Assessment

GE Medical Systems, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), has signed a clinical trial agreement with the Cancer Imaging Program of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for multi-site clinical trials of 18F-Fluorothymidine (FLT) as an agent for positron emission tomography (PET), applied to the management of patients with cancer.

FLT is a PET radiopharmaceutical used to image DNA synthesis, showing high contrast in the presence of cellular proliferation in tumors and other proliferating tissues. FLT has shown preliminary promise for the in-vivo imaging of cellular proliferation.

The monitoring of the anti-proliferative effects of chemotherapeutic agents may be important in the management of patients with cancer. An imaging agent that can provide an early assessment of an agent's anti-proliferative activity may assure that patients receive effective therapy.

The NCI will sponsor clinical trials at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Washington and the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. GE Medical will provide TRACERlab FX synthesis systems to produce FLT for the clinical work that will be conducted at these sites.

It is anticipated that FLT will be one of the first PET agents for which there will be a United States Food and Drug Administration Investigational New Drug (IND) proceeding for the NCI-sponsored multi-site trials. This will also be the first clinical trial of an imaging agent supported by the General Electric Company.

"Today, cancer therapies are often given empirically: a treatment is provided to five or 10 people, and it may work in one or two," said, Dr. James Thrall, Chief of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital. "We prefer to give patients therapy that is very likely to be effective.

"By using agents like FLT that can specifically image proliferation and other aspects of tumor biology, we can look at tumors before and soon after treatment to determine reliably whether a given therapy will be effective or not," Thrall said. "The idea is to personalize therapy by using PET imaging of the cancer to choose the right treatment and enable the patient to avoid inappropriate therapy."

GE Medical technology will play an essential role in enabling the multi-site trials. Each site will use TRACERlab FXN synthesis boxes in an identical setup with standard operating protocols, ensuring that FLT is synthesized in a reproducible manner across all clinical sites. This, in turn, enables data from all sites to be reliably compared.

"We are proud to collaborate with the National Cancer Institute on this program," said Joe Hogan, President & CEO, GE Medical Systems. "This study can help advance the state of the art in molecular imaging to support better clinical diagnosis, staging, therapy and follow-up for cancer care."

Besides the TRACERlab FXN synthesis equipment, four out of five of the clinical sites will use GE Medical PET/CT or PET systems in the patient trials. Under the terms of the agreement with the NCI, GE Medical Systems also will be responsible for developing the standard FLT synthesis software and procedures.

GE Medical Systems brings molecular imaging expertise with multi-modality, pre-clinical and clinical imaging offerings, providing a bridge between novel drug discovery and the clinical needs of today. With pre-clinical CT and Optical imaging systems, GE Medical helps pharmaceutical researchers accelerate the development of new therapeutics and diagnostics. With the most extensive portfolio of high-resolution, high-sensitivity clinical scanners in the industry, GE Medical Systems delivers comprehensive advanced imaging solutions today.

For tomorrow, GE Medical and an expanding network of pharmaceutical and academic collaborators are actively advancing molecular medicine. In its role, GE is developing advanced imaging capabilities that combine the latest developments in targeted diagnostic chemistry with advanced informatics to visualize novel molecular markers of disease, so that in the future clinicians will noninvasively diagnose life-threatening disease earlier, treat it more specifically, and monitor it more closely.

About the National Cancer Institute

The National Cancer Institute, one of the National Institutes of Health, leads a national effort to achieve a future when all cancers are controlled or eliminated, by stimulating and supporting research and its application. It provides vision and leadership to the cancer community as it strives to more fully integrate discovery activities through interdisciplinary collaboration, to accelerate the development of interventions and new technology through translational research, and to ensure the delivery of these interventions through clinical and public health programs.

About GE Medical Systems

GE Medical Systems is a $10 billion global leader in medical imaging, point-of-care systems, healthcare services, and information technology. Its offerings include networking and productivity tools, clinical information systems, patient monitoring systems, anesthesia and respiratory care, maternal-infant care systems, surgery and vascular imaging, conventional and digital X-ray, dental imaging, computed tomography, electron beam tomography, magnetic resonance, ultrasound and bone mineral densitometry, positron emission tomography, nuclear medicine, and a comprehensive portfolio of clinical and business services. For more than 100 years, health care providers worldwide have relied on GE Medical Systems for high quality medical technology and productivity solutions. For more information, visit the GE Medical Systems Web site at www.gemedical.com.

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NOTE TO EDITORS: In "18F-Fluorothymidine" the 18 is superscript. In "TRACERlab FXN" the N is subscript.