Siemens opens L.A. facility specializing in 'biomarkers'.

The U.S. medical division of German conglomerate Siemens AG has long been known for its medical imaging equipment. It's now becoming an important player in the cutting-edge field of personalized medicine--with Los Angeles key to the vision.

The company this month opened a state-of-the-art research facility in Culver City that will develop molecular imaging "biomarkers" and related products for use by doctors and biomedical companies. The process allows scans to be taken of a patient so they can be analyzed to identify cancer and neurological diseases while still in the earliest stages.

"We believe this is going to change the way medicine is practiced around the world," said Hartmuth Kolb, a former research scientist who as vice president of Siemens Molecular Imaging Biomarker Research will oversee the facility.

Kolb foresees the day when biomarkers will be used by hospitals to monitor the effectiveness of a treatment in close to real time, enabling quick adjustment of a dosage or even a switch to another medication. The approach could also help bring new drugs to market sooner and less expensively.

UCLA researcher and popular author Dr. Gary Small wrote a December New England Journal of Medicine article describing that using a particular marker in conjunction with PET scanning had been 98 percent accurate in identifying Alzheimer's among a small group of patients who outwardly showed only mild cognitive problems. Siemens and UCLA are in first-stage clinical trials on an Alzheimer's disease biomarker.

Siemens has spent nearly $9 billion in the United States over the last several years to acquire companies and build facilities that will enable it to become the first full-service diagnostics company offering technologies that diagnose both from fluid and tissue samples and non-invasive scanning.

The company last July completed acquisition of Los Angeles-based Diagnostics Products Corp., which develops automated body fluid analyzers and tests. And the multimillion-dollar Culver City research facility will work with area universities such as UCLA and corporate clients to develop a database of biomarkers and related products for diagnostic imaging.

In less than two years, Siemens has grown from having only a handful of sales reps in Los Angeles to a large local employer, including more than 1,200 employees from Diagnostic Products and 25 people at the growing research facility.

"Los Angeles is at the core of our molecular medicine strategy," Said Michael Reitermann, president of Siemens Medical Solutions' Molecular Imaging Division.