Siemens Healthineers completed a $43.6 million expansion of its positron emission tomography (PET) Detector Center in Rockford, Tennessee, the company announced yesterday.
The project added 40,000 ft² to the nearly 100,000 ft² manufacturing and R&D facility, and will add more than 90 new jobs over the next five years, Siemens Healthineers said.
“We are making significant investments in our research and development sector now to ensure Tennessee is positioned to attract the jobs of the future,” said Deputy Gov. and Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Stuart C. McWhorter, in a news release.
“Siemens Healthineers’ investment to expand its manufacturing and build out R&D across the company’s Rockford facility strengthens the state’s growing innovation ecosystem, and we are grateful for their continued partnership and commitment to Blount County,” he continued.
The Rockford center is the European medtech giant’s sole manufacturing facility for PET detectors, which capture gamma rays emitted once a patient is injected with a radiopharmaceutical. PET or computed tomography (CT) scanners translate the captured rays into images, which clinicians use to visualize diseases and metabolic activity within the body.
The renovated facility expands Siemens Healthineers Molecular Imaging’s production capacity to accommodate growing demand, which the company attributes to growing clinical use of radiopharmaceuticals in cancer care, neurology applications such as Alzheimer’s disease evaluation and cardiac imaging.
Renovations included adding 36,000 ft² of manufacturing space, renovating a section of the PET detector manufacturing and engineering facility to increase production capacity and a 4,000 ft² expansion of the company’s on-site R&D facility.
The increase in PET detector production will support Siemens Healthineers’ launch of new PET/CT product lines in the U.S. and globally, the company said.
“This ambitious expansion and renovation of our Rockford PET Detector Center demonstrates our ongoing commitment to being global leaders in PET/CT technology,” Siemens Healthineers Molecular Imaging head James Williams said in an announcement.
“This building project significantly increases production capacity and customer access to our PET/CT scanners to meet the rapidly growing worldwide clinical demand for PET/CT imaging,” he continued. “We are grateful to the state of Tennessee for the FastTrack Economic Development Grant that has supported this project, which will bring new jobs to the greater Rockford area.”
The project was funded in part by a $930,000 FastTrack Economic Development Grant from the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development.
