BWI: Nueclear Healthcare Ltd (NHL) and GE Healthcare Join Hands in the Fight against Cancer

Press release from Business Wire India
Source: GE Healthcare
Sunday, December 11, 2011 09:28 AM IST (03:58 AM GMT)
Editors: Business: Business services, Healthcare, biotechnology & pharmaceutical; Technology; Healthcare
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Nueclear Healthcare Ltd (NHL) and GE Healthcare Join Hands in the Fight against Cancer
To set up 120 advanced molecular imaging Centers across India to enable early detection of cancer

Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, Sunday, December 11, 2011 -- (Business Wire India) -- Nueclear Healthcare Ltd (NHL), a division of Thyrocare Group and GE Healthcare today announced a strategic partnership to establish a network of 120 molecular imaging centres to address the rapid growth of cancer incidence in India. These molecular imaging centres equipped with 120 advanced GE Discovery PET/CT imaging systems and 12 GE PET Trace Medical Cyclotrons that will produce glucose (FDG) to aid the early detection. GE Healthcare & NHL expects to establish the whole network of 120 centres by 2015 in 3 phases.

According to the American Cancer Society in a 2010 report, the total economic impact of premature death and disability from cancer worldwide was $895 billion in 2008. This figure represents 1.5 percent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP) and does not include direct medical costs, which would further increase economic impact. Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in India, with about 2.5 million cancer patients, 1 million added every year with a chance of rising five-fold by 2025 prompting Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) urging the Government of India to make cancer a notifiable disease. Cancer can be treated and controlled if detected early - in Stage I or Stage II. However, over 70% of cancer is detected late at a very late stage in India, when treatment is less effective and costly. While low awareness is one significant reason, unavailability of early cancer detection facilities and availability of experts is the other significant reason.

"We're taking the fight to cancer, and reverse the trend of late detection of this dreaded disease when treatment is not effective to stage II or stage I when the treatment is most effective. We pioneered advanced medical technology like molecular imaging that helps doctors diagnose early and treat cancer on a molecular level." Said Terri Bresenham, President & CEO, GE Healthcare India.

"We are at work to create a healthier India. This strategic partnership with Thyrocare Technologies is a game changer and will help us increase the access to high quality cancer detection at smaller towns and villages by leaps and bounds" she added.

When it comes to accurate cancer diagnosis and treatment monitoring, patients in India would benefit from this advanced imaging technology called PET/CT. However, the high expenditure involved in setting up molecular imaging centres and availability of experts have slowed down the spread of this life saving technology drastically and is mostly limited to metropolitan areas. However, cancer is equally prevalent in small towns and rural areas. People ignore early diagnosis/detection and sometimes treatment because it's too expensive for them to travel to metropolitan clinics that have the needed technology and capabilities. People often agree for diagnosis when the cancer is in stage III or IV when treatment is ineffective and the disease is irreversible.

Most people know about cancer, but don't understand how preventable many cancers are - and how the choices they make in their day can impact their incidence rate or potential survival rate. The cost of diagnosis and treatment has prevented them from opting for early diagnosis using advanced molecular imaging technologies. The answer to cancer is in creating a network of affordable early detection and treatment centres". Said Dr A Velumani, Founder & Managing Director of Nueclear Healthcare Ltd (NHL) Mumbai.

Our vision is to provide early cancer detection and treatment facilities in every small town in India, keeping in tradition with the innovative service facilities Thyrocare has been offering to households over the past 10 years. We are pleased to join hands with GE Healthcare provide this solid answer to cancer" he added.

A one-stop-facility for cancer detection & treatment:

Molecular imaging is a combination of fields such as biology, medicine, pharmaceutics, physics, chemistry and engineering that allows physicians to detect, treat and monitor disease at the body's cellular levels. Molecular imaging and scanning capabilities make multi-medical therapy possible. The most exciting result is the ability to diagnose health problems, such as cancer/ tumors, coronary artery disease, and neurological diseases in patients with no clear symptoms. Physicians can treat different patients according to specific situations, slow the progression of the disease, and evaluate the effects of treatment.

The GE Discovery PET/CT systems will help doctors determine whether a suspicious growth is cancerous or benign in a single exam. Previously, doctors had to put patients through two separate scans to get similar information - with limited success. Medical research published in the New England Journal of Medicine indicates integrated PET/CT exams provide extra information beyond that obtained with visually correlated PET and CT in 41% of cases because of its proven pinpoint accuracy in locating disease.

The proposed oncology centers will feature GE PET-Trace cyclotrons and cGMP laboratory that produces high yields of radioisotope biomarkers. These are essential for accurate PET diagnosis.

Cancer diagnosis and treatment is at a major tipping point, and we can no longer afford to act independently. We must think and act systemically and in concert with partners across the private sector, government, nonprofits and academia to knock down barriers and stretch our thinking," said Balamurugan NR, General Manager - Molecular Imaging, GE Healthcare India.
Despite being a leading cause of death around the world, 30% of cancers can potentially be prevented by avoiding risk factors, such as tobacco use and obesity, and others can be successfully treated and possibly cured by earlier detection and improvement of disease management.

GE Healthcare has earmarked $ 1 Billion of its total R&D budget through 2020 to the development of oncology solutions. This funding will enable the company to expand its advanced cancer diagnostic & molecular imaging capabilities, as well as technolgoies used in cancer research and for the manufacture of bio-pharmaceuticals. In India, GE is developing a low cost PET/CT system that will bring down the cost of advanced PET/CT systems by 40% and will enable access of this accurate early detection technology affordable to more people.

ABOUT CANCER:

Cancer is the leading killer disease in the world with 7.1 Million deaths (13% of total deaths) reported in 2004 and is projected to continue rising with an estimated 12 million deaths in 2030. WHO also estimates that 84 million people will die of cancer between 2005 and 2015 without intervention. About 72% of all cancer deaths in 2007 occurred in low and middle income countries. 30% of cancers are treatable if detected early. WHO Cancer Fact Sheet: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs297/en/index.html

Burden of Cancer in India

It is estimated that there are approximately 2.5 million cases of cancer in India at any given time. Nearly 1 million new cases are being diagnosed every the year leading to a five fold increase by 2025. The tobacco related cancers account for almost a third of cancers diagnosed in head and neck, lung and oesophagus in the Indian population. The two most common cancers of women viz. cancer of the cervix and breast further account for half the cancer burden in Indian women. The heavy cancer toll is due to the fact that 70% present in the clinically advanced stages T3-T4 with catastrophic economic impact. http://mohfw.nic.in/cancer.html

ABOUT NUECLEAR Healthcare Ltd (NHL):

Nueclear Healthcare Ltd (NHL) is the brainchild of Dr A Velumani, Founder of Thyrocare Group. Thyrocare group is the industry leader, trend setter and innovators in Indian Diagnostic industry. Thyrocare, is a single laboratory for a billion population. It is a network of more than 20,000 Service Centers across the country, with ISO 9001-2000 certification, NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories) and College of American Pathologists (CAP) accreditations. Thyrocare's network is vast enough to process 5,00,000 investigations per day in its current facilities in Mumbai.

Dr A Velumani having established economy of scales in laboratory testing believes a similar volume based approach in cancer diagnostics using nuclear medicine will help tackle the huge cancer incidence in India. NHL's vision is to set up 20 Medical Cyclotron facilities across India to bring down the cost burden of isotope used for cancer diagnosis. The hub and spoke model with strategically installed medical cyclotrons will support 120 PET/CT imaging centres with each cyclotron capable of servicing 12 imaging centres.
www.thyrocare.com; www.nueclear.com

ABOUT GE HEALTHCARE:

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.

Our "healthymagination" vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees are committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.

To view the photograph, please click on the link given below:

From Left - Ms. Terri Bresenham, President and CEO, GE Healthcare India with Dr. A Velumani Founder & Managing Director of Thyrocare Technologies at the press conference in Chennai
For picture(s)/data to illustrate this release click below:

http://www.BusinessWireIndia.com/attachments/1(172).jpg
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CONTACT DETAILS
Manoj Menon, Communications Leader, GE Healthcare South Asia, +91 9845199852, manoj.menon@ge.com
Madhura Kapse, +91 9620221540, madhura.kapse@bm.com

KEYWORDS
BUSINESS SERVICES, HEALTHCARE, TECHNOLOGY, HEALTHCARE

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