GE HealthCare Reveals Thera4Care, an Initiative to Broaden Theranostics in Europe

GE HealthCare announced the beginning of Thera4Care, an initiative with the goal of revolutionizing use of theranostics to broaden their patient access in Europe. The company will also play an industrial role in the initiative.
 
Theranostics combine imaging diagnostics and targeted therapeutics for personalized treatment. It leverages molecular imaging technology to visualize tumor receptors. If these are present, a radioactive drug can also be delivered to selectively target the tumor cells.
 
Already used to treat some late-stage prostate and neuroendocrine cancers, theranostics is only available in a limited number of specialized centers. Thera4Care, GE HealthCare said, arose from the clinical need to develop new and innovative theranostics so clinical indications can be expanded, and use broadened to community centers.
 
Thera4Care will create, implement, and disseminate standardized, scalable methods to produce, detect, and monitor key theranostic isotopes, from manufacturing and early diagnostic delivery to therapy. The project will strengthen the use and adoption of radiology-based diagnostics and therapies and focus on disease areas (prostate, ovarian, pancreas cancers and sarcomas).
 
GE HealthCare’s technology supports the steps required to deliver on the theranostics pathway, with cyclotrons and PET and SPECT imaging scanners to advanced visualization solutions, digital solutions, and consulting services.
 
GE HealthCare and the Thera4Care sponsors’ specific aims are:

• Expand the European network of copper producing isotope good manufacturing practices (GMP) sites using a common hardware and software platform with identical and reproducible methods.
• Build next-gen SPECT-CT imaging scanners to enable imaging with a wide range of alpha emitters.
• Build artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled imaging and multi-modal theranostic clinical decision support with predictive analytics capabilities, first targeting prostate cancer to ensure optimized patient outcomes.
• Enhance AI-based tumor quantitation by developing a methodology framework for personalized dosimetry.

 
Thera4Care brings together partners from 14 European countries and the U.S. The project is co-funded under the Horizon Europe framework, and part of the Innovative Health Initiative (IHI), a public-private partnership between the European Union and the European life science industries.
 
“We are thrilled to play a leading role in Thera4Care, a unique collaboration of academic and industry partners who share a common goal to advance connected, personalized and compassionate cancer care,” said Dr. Ben Newton, GE HealthCare’s general manager for Oncology Solutions. “Our collective efforts are designed to improve healthcare system readiness for this rapidly growing field of precision medicine.”