Gamma Medica-Ideas Announces Agreement to Acquire and Merge Operations with Advanced Molecular Imaging

Northridge, CA, November 28, 2006 --(PR.com)-- Los Angeles and Oslo based Gamma Medica Ideas, Inc. (GM-I), a leader in providing next-generation medical imaging devices for the pre-clinical and clinical markets, announced today that it had reached agreement to acquire and merge operations with Sherbrooke, Canada based Advanced Molecular Imaging, Inc. (AMI), the only company in the world delivering a fully digital APD PET product for pre-clinical imaging. 

The combined company emerges as the world’s first and only company with a complete range of digital imaging technologies including APD PET and GM-I’s recently announced CZT SPECT detector technologies, as well as the most advanced range of multiple modality imaging systems for drug discovery and medical research. 

"This merger is a logical next step in the evolution of Gamma Medica that creates substantial value for the customers and shareholders of both AMI and GM-I," said GM-I CEO and co-founder Bradley E. Patt, Ph.D. "It will create the world’s first completely digital imaging suite, allowing us to provide innovative solutions to our molecular imaging customers. These solutions will streamline imaging protocols while improving data quality, resulting in a better insight into the biology and physiology underlying disease. Ultimately this should translate into more accurate diagnostic and treatment protocols.” 

“The new entity is the ideal vehicle for bringing semiconductor detector technology and advanced digital signal processing to the molecular imaging market, by leveraging over 20 years of combined experience in those fields,” added Dr. Lecomte, CTO of AMI. GM-I will have offices in Los Angeles, Oslo and Sherbrooke and expects to maintain a close relationship with AMI’s academic partner Université de Sherbrooke, which has developed strong expertise in PET imaging. 

GM-I will continue to offer customers its full suite of products including its FLEX Triumph™ Platform supporting X-PET™, X-SPECT® (NaI or CZT), and X-O™ (CT) pre-clinical imaging sub-systems configured as single, dual, or tri-modality combinations. Following the acquisition, GM-I will also offer its LabPET™ APD PET (former AMI offering) as a stand-alone product or in combination with any of GM-I’s other subsystems. 

About Gamma Medica-Ideas, Inc.
Gamma Medica-Ideas (GM-I) develops novel technologies to improve patient health through early diagnosis of disease, improved patient treatment and by enabling new drug discovery. GM-I is dedicated to leading medical imaging into a new digital era with its unique sensor readout systems. The company’s core digital imaging technologies also hold great promise for a new class of solutions for the safety and security markets. GM-I’s products include the LumaGEM®, a Molecular Breast Imaging (MBI) based system for early diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. The digital gamma ray imaging technology in LumaGEM offers significant advances in resolution and contrast allowing for identification of millimeter sized breast cancers often missed by mammography, especially in women with dense breast tissue. GM-I also offers the FLEX Triumph pre-clinical imaging platform for medical research and drug development. GM-I’s Triumph system combines PET (X-PET), SPECT (X-SPECT) and CT (X-O) modalities in the world’s first tri-modality system. GM-I was first to offer products in the pre-clinical SPECT and SPECT/CT markets, is the market leader in this field, and boasts the largest installed user-base worldwide. GM-I’s imaging systems are used by some of the world’s leading medical institutions, including Harvard University, Mayo Clinic, the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas, Switzerland’s Center for Radiopharmaceutical Science, Yale University and many others.

More information is available at www.gm-ideas.com 

About Advanced Molecular Imaging, Inc. (AMI)
Advanced Molecular Imaging (AMI) develops medical devices and techniques to support molecular imaging of living subjects. AMI designs, manufactures and markets advanced imaging devices targeted at the pharmaceutical pre-clinical research and clinical diagnostic markets. AMI holds a portfolio of proprietary technologies whose primary focus is in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging based on the original, field-proven Avalanche PhotoDiode (APD) detector technology developed in collaboration with the Université de Sherbrooke. The company’s core technology provides a unique cost-effective solution to molecular imaging with unprecedented performance. It aims at reducing the cost of developing new drugs and at allowing new patient treatment approaches to become pervasive. LabPET, AMI’s flagship product provides the ability to visualize and quantify biological processes with a reconstructed resolution of < 2.4 µl. The LabPET is incredibly easy-to-use, as it integrates ancillary devices which are essential for performing reproducible and reliable molecular imaging studies.

More information is available at www.advanced-mi.com

###
Contact
Gamma Medica-Ideas
Deborah Matthew
818-709-2468 ext. 131
www.gm-ideas.com
ContactContact
Categories