GE to buy Orbotech for nuke med platform

Alcyone Technology procedure of Discovery NM 530c. Five minute stress, five minute redistribution. Image source: CCN (Songy) in Saint Denis, France/GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Orbotech Medical Solutions (OMS), a subsidiary of Orbotech, and a manufacturer of cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) detectors used in GE’s innovative Alcyone nuclear medicine technology.

Under the agreement, GE will pay $9 million in cash at closing for the assets of OMS, and up to an additional $5 million in cash, subject to the achievement of certain agreed performance-based milestones.

“We believe the future of nuclear medicine lies in the further development of CZT used in our Alcyone technology,” said Nathan Hermony, general manager of nuclear medicine for GE Healthcare.

Alcyone technology is a nuclear cardiology platform that combines CZT detectors, focused pin-hole collimation, 3D reconstruction and stationary data acquisition, said GE. Available in SPECT (Discovery NM 530c) and SPECT/CT (Discovery NM/CT 570c) configurations, Alcyone technology enables views of cardiac anatomy and functionality.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, and is expected to close by the first quarter of 2011, GE reported.