USA – Elekta has signed a global commercial collaboration agreement with GE Healthcare in the field of radiation oncology, allowing them to provide hospitals with a comprehensive offering that includes imaging and therapy for cancer patients who require radiation therapy.

Elekta and GE Healthcare aim to meet the significant need for radiotherapy solutions in both developed and developing markets as hospitals increasingly seek flexible and interoperable simulation and guidance technology.

Radiation therapy is required for up to 50–60% of all cancer patients, which necessitates high-quality imaging as well as sophisticated delivery equipment and software to precisely target tumors while sparing healthy tissue.

Precision imaging is critical for determining tumor size, shape, and characteristics, as well as distinguishing healthy tissues.

To deliver the most appropriate dose, advanced patient positioning, motion management technologies, and cutting-edge techniques such as VMAT or SBRT are required.

When GE Healthcare’s imaging solutions are combined with Elekta’s radiation therapy solutions, hospitals will have an even more compelling offering.

The agreement is non-exclusive, which means that each party may continue to work with other partners.

Each company will also still offer its own technology using standard interfaces and can also continue to cooperate with other partners, GE and Elekta said.

Both companies are eager to investigate opportunities to improve interoperability and streamline radiation oncology workflows.

In other news, GE Healthcare collaborated with Hakki Muammer Karakas, coordinator for the Istanbul Provincial Health Directorate Radiology Services and a thought leader in Turkish healthcare digitalization, to develop AI tools for diagnosing COVID-19 and breast cancer using GE Healthcare’s Edison Health Services.

Separately, GE Healthcare and Seoul National University Bundang Hospital (SNUBH) have signed an agreement to support Korean medical startups by leveraging the latest Edison Digital Health platform.

According to a press release, this collaboration will result in the first deployment of GE Healthcare’s Edison platform in South Korea.

According to a news report, the companies will also provide advice and coaching support for startups looking to enter global markets.

Edison is a platform for application hosting and data aggregation that includes an AI engine. It provides a variety of healthcare-specific services that allow for the rapid design, development, and deployment of applications and algorithms.

Both companies intend to help Korean startups develop and deploy clinical and operational applications. SNUBH will also implement the Edison platform in order to expand its AI offerings.

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