GE, Pittsburgh hospital establish imaging business

Yahoo reports GE, Pittsburgh hospital establish imaging business.

General Electric Co., the international conglomerate with a stake in everything from jet engines to network television, is investing $20 million in technology that will allow doctors to share and transmit images of microscopic human tissue.

The partnership with a Pittsburgh hospital marks GE's entrance into a $2 billion market and could help expand its GE Healthcare division.

GE Healthcare and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center are each putting up $20 million to establish Omnyx LLC, a business to develop and commercialize technology allowing doctors to store and display on computers, digital images of human tissue from microscope slides, allowing colleagues anywhere to participate in consultations.

We had been expecting this for some time and eagerly welcome a major heathcare provider like GE to the market. It obviously validates our view that this is a large and important market, and that digital pathology has significant value for pathologists and patients.

Other companies, such as Aperio Technologies Inc. in Vista, Calif., already are in the business of scanning biopsies and transforming computers into virtual microscopes. Aperio CEO Dirk G. Soenksen welcomed GE's new venture.

"It will do tremendous things to accelerate the market. It's a major move on the chess board," he said. "There's certainly enough business for everybody. It won't take business away from others, it will make the market bigger."

Pretty exciting!