The Pittsburgh-based company acquired the Discovery NM750b and other MBI scanner designs, manufacturing tools, instructions and related patents and installed-base service business as part of the deal.
SmartBreast will begin to market and distribute the Discovery NM750b and rebrand it as Eve Clear Scan e750.
“GE Healthcare’s MBI system has developed a positive reputation for helping physicians with the detection of cancer lesions in dense breast tissue,” Erez Levy, GM of nuclear medicine at GE Healthcare, said in a news release. “We are proud of this system’s legacy and will continue to support its mission with our world-class Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) detectors for SmartBreast’s use in the MBI system.”
Molecular breast imaging is used to detect breast cancer earlier in people with dense breast tissue. It images through the tissue to find cancers that mammography misses. In one clinical study, researchers at the Mayo Clinic found that mammography found 3.2 cancers per 1,000 people with dense breasts. Adding low-dose MBI increased the found cancers to 12 per 1,000 people.
“We will become the largest global player in secondary screening and diagnostics for women with dense breasts by providing the most effective tool for locating and diagnosing cancers occult on mammography,” SmartBreast CEO James Hugg said. “We have acquired Dilon’s and also GE Healthcare’s MBI product lines, consolidating clinically proven reliable products with 217 installations globally. Our mission is to make MBI available to all dense breast patients woefully in need of better cancer discovery and diagnostic tools.”
SmartBreast is slated to begin a $5 million Seed financing round following the acquisition.