Bangalore: GE Healthcare, a division of General Electric Company, has collaborated with Manipal Hospital here to set up an Integrated Development Centre at the hospital to conduct clinical trials.

This is the first such integrated development centre established by GE Healthcare in the world.

Dan Peters, chief executive officer and president of Medical Diagnostics at GE Healthcare, told presspersons here on Thursday that the centre in Bangalore would conduct clinical trials to check the efficacy of contrast agents used in diagnostic imaging technologies.

Information obtained from this site would be combined with data from other centres and this would contribute towards the development of new contrast and molecular imaging agents or new indications for existing agents, he said.

The first studies would focus on Visipaque, an X-Ray/CT product for diagnosis of a wide range of diseases, including coronary heart disease, and aid in stent placement, which was introduced by GE Healthcare in 1996.

Clinical research

Manipal Hospital would conduct clinical research using a wide range of GE Healthcare's diagnostic imaging technologies, including 16 slice PET/CT scanner, lightspeed VCT, high definition magnetic resonance and dual head gamma camera in the area of cardiac ailments and Parkinson's disease, R. Basil, CEO, Manipal Health Systems, said.

"We chose India because of the large population, advanced healthcare system, availability of competent healthcare professionals, healthcare infrastructure and cost-effectiveness," Mr. Peters said.

`Early Health'

The centre in Bangalore would play a crucial role in GE Healthcare's ongoing global clinical research programme and would support its vision of "Early Health," by helping in bringing new diagnostic imaging agents in the market and working towards addressing medical needs in cardiology, neurology and oncology.

Mr. Basil said the clinical trials would start from <129>September 15 and go on for three years.

The hospital had made an investment of $ 7 million in imaging infrastructure for this project, he added.

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