GE Healthcare to Acquire Israeli Cadmium Zinc Telluride Detector Business

GE Healthcare (Chalfont St. Giles, UK), a unit of General Electric Company (Fairfield, CT, USA), announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Orbotech Medical Solutions, Ltd. (OMS; Yavne, Israel), a subsidiary of Orbotech, Ltd. (Orbotech), and a manufacturer of cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) detectors used in GE Healthcare's Alcyone nuclear medicine technology.

Under this agreement, GE Healthcare will pay US$9 million in cash at closing for the assets of OMS, and up to an additional $5 million in cash, subject to the achievement of certain agreed performance-based milestones.

"We believe the future of nuclear medicine lies in the further development of CZT used in our Alcyone technology,” said Nathan Hermony, general manager nuclear medicine for GE Healthcare. "Through this acquisition, we will expand our investment in CZT technology to benefit our molecular imaging customers, bringing new nuclear medicine technologies to healthcare professionals worldwide.”

Representing a significant development in nuclear medicine technology, Alcyone technology is a nuclear cardiology platform that combines cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) detectors, focused pinhole collimation, three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction, and stationary data acquisition to reduce acquisition time and dose, and improve overall image quality and workflow. Available in single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) (Discovery NM 530c) and SPECT/CT (Discovery NM/CT 570c) configurations, Alcyone technology enables views of cardiac anatomy and functionality with greater clarity and speed, resulting in scan times as short as three minutes or up to a four-fold reduction in dose. Alcyone technology helps clinicians provide patients with faster and more comfortable examinations and improve clinician confidence. Furthermore, unlike traditional nuclear imaging, with Alcyone's focused pinhole collimation, all views are acquired simultaneously during a stationary SPECT acquisition, eliminating equipment movement during the scan and reducing the risk of motion artifacts.

Mr. Hermony added, "Alcyone technology opens the doors for developments of new applications such as dynamic acquisition for measuring blood flow and multiple isotopes to improve specificity of the nuclear cardiology examination.”

Commenting on the transaction, Rani Cohen, president and chief executive officer of Orbotech, said, "We believe that a company such as GE will now be very well placed to pursue, and bring to successful commercialization, the cutting edge CZT technology developed by OMS for use in nuclear medicine imaging applications.”

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, and is expected to close by the first quarter of 2011.

Orbotech is principally engaged in the design, development, manufacture, marketing, and service of yield-enhancing and production solutions for specialized applications in the supply chain of the electronics industry. Orbotech's products include automated optical inspection (AOI), production and process control systems for printed circuit boards (PCBs) and AOI, test and repair systems for flat panel displays (FPDs).

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