Elekta and GE Healthcare collaborate to expand access to precision radiation therapy solutions
STOCKHOLM/CHICAGO – Elekta (EKTA-B.ST) and GE Healthcare announced today that they have signed a global commercial collaboration agreement in the field of radiation oncology, enabling them to provide hospitals a comprehensive offering across imaging and treatment for cancer patients requiring radiation therapy.
As hospitals increasingly seek flexible and interoperable simulation and guidance technology, Elekta and GE Healthcare aim to meet the major need for radiotherapy solutions across both developed and developing markets.
As many as 50–60 percent of all cancer patients require radiation therapy[1] which requires high quality imaging and sophisticated delivery equipment and software to precisely target tumors while sparing healthy tissue. Precision imaging is fundamental to determining the size, shape and characteristics of tumors and differentiating between healthy tissues. Delivering the most appropriate dose requires advanced patient positioning, motion management technologies and state-of-the-art techniques such as VMAT[2] or SBRT[3]. Combining GE Healthcare’s imaging solutions with Elekta’s radiation therapy solutions will result in an even more compelling offering for hospitals and ultimately their patients.
Elekta CEO, Gustaf Salford, said: “We are driven by our hospitals and cancer centers’ preferences and their need for comprehensive solutions in effective, efficient and safe cancer care. Therefore, we’re excited about this collaboration with GE Healthcare. We have many mutual health care providers who see clear synergies and advantages with our respective, strong product portfolios. This will allow us to jointly promote solutions for each cancer center’s needs. Elekta strives to assure that hospitals and cancer centers can create seamless ecosystems that facilitate efficient end-to-end cancer care.”
“Access to radiation therapy is a significant challenge in several parts of the globe. We are pleased that this collaboration is a step in the right direction to make more comprehensive precision health solutions more readily available,” said Jan Makela, President & CEO GE Healthcare Imaging. “Cancer care can only be improved if players in the field work together and this is one of several partnerships that we are pursuing, for the benefit of caregivers and patients, as we build out our Oncology offerings to help enable more precise care.”
GE Healthcare and Elekta will continue to offer their own solutions using standard interoperability and facilitate interfaces with any vendor’s systems.
The agreement is non-exclusive, meaning each party can continue to cooperate with other partners. Separately, both companies are eager to improve interoperability and streamline workflows in radiation oncology.
# # #
For further information, please contact:
Mattias Thorsson, Vice President, Head of Corporate Communications
Tel: +46 70 865 8012, e-mail: [email protected]
Time zone: CET: Central European Time
Raven Canzeri, Global Director, Media Relations
Tel: +1 770-670-2524, e-mail: [email protected]
Time zone: ET: Eastern Time
Hannah Huntly, GE Healthcare
Tel: +44 7887 824201, e-mail: [email protected]
About Elekta
As a leader in precision radiation therapy, Elekta is committed to ensuring every patient has access to the best cancer care possible. We openly collaborate with customers to advance sustainable, outcome-driven and cost-efficient solutions to meet evolving patient needs, improve lives and bring hope to everyone dealing with cancer. To us, it's personal, and our global team of 4,700 employees combine passion, science, and imagination to profoundly change cancer care. We don’t just build technology, we build hope. Elekta is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, with offices in more than 120 countries and listed on Nasdaq Stockholm. For more information, visit elekta.com or follow @Elekta on Twitter.
About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare is the $17.7 billion healthcare business of GE (NYSE: GE). As a leading global medical technology, pharmaceutical diagnostics and digital solutions innovator, GE Healthcare enables clinicians to make faster, more informed decisions through intelligent devices, data analytics, applications and services, supported by its Edison intelligence platform. With over 100 years of healthcare industry experience and around 47,000 employees globally, the company operates at the center of an ecosystem working toward precision health, digitizing healthcare, helping drive productivity and improve outcomes for patients, providers, health systems and researchers around the world.
Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Insights for the latest news, or visit our website www.gehealthcare.com for more information.
[1] Atun et al, Expanding global access to radiotherapy, The Lancet Oncol 2015 Sep; 16(10): 1153-86 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26419354/
[2] Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy – a novel radiation therapy technique that delivers the radiation dose continuously as the treatment machine rotates
[3] Stereotactic body radiotherapy, which gives radiotherapy from many different angles around the body, with the beams meeting at the tumor. https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancer-in-general/treatment/radiotherapy/external/types/stereotactic-body-radiotherapy-sbrt