GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric (NYSE:GE), announced
today that it has completed a license agreement with NorDiag ASA,
(OSE:NORD) granting NorDiag ASA access to GE Healthcare patents for
the biomagnetic isolation of nucleic acids. The license, which is
valid for the lifetime of the patents, grants NorDiag ASA certain
rights with respect to the isolation and purification of nucleic acids
using GE Healthcare's proprietary magnetic separation technology.
GE Healthcare's patented methods for magnetic separation offer
significant advantages over conventional techniques for the isolation
and purification of biomolecules such as DNA and RNA from laboratory
and clinical samples. In particular, the proprietary protocols will
allow diagnosis from smaller-volume patient samples because they
increase the yield of nucleic acid from disease-causing pathogens
isolated from patient samples.
"This license recognizes the considerable value that our
biomagnetic isolation technology can bring to the diagnosis of
infectious diseases," said Eric Roman, General Manager, Genomic
Sciences, GE Healthcare. "We are pleased to grant NorDiag ASA access
to our patents in this area, which will allow them to commercialise
products that can isolate nucleic acids from difficult clinical
samples."
"The license from GE Healthcare is important for us since it
enables us to widen our portfolio of products for clinical
diagnostics," said Marten Wigst0l, CEO, NorDiag. "It also shows
shareholders that we have the capability to bring in external
technologies from large players such as GE Healthcare to strengthen
our technology base."
GE Healthcare has an active program to grant licenses for access
to its patents for biomagnetic isolation. Financial terms were not
disclosed.
About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and
services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in
medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics,
patient monitoring systems, performance improvement, drug discovery,
and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping clinicians
around the world re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, inform,
treat and monitor disease, so patients can live their lives to the
fullest.
GE Healthcare's broad range of products and services enable
healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart
disease, neurological diseases and other conditions earlier. Our
vision for the future is to enable a new "early health" model of care
focused on earlier diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection and
disease prevention. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare
is a $17 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE).
Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 46,000 people committed to
serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100
countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website
at www.gehealthcare.com.
About NorDiag ASA:
NorDiag is a biotechnology company with focus on gene based
diagnostics in the fields of cancer and infectious diseases. The
company's first product in cancer diagnosis is Genefec TM for
diagnosis of colorectal cancer. The company has other applications for
diagnosis of cancer under development, among others a screening
product for colorectal cancer. In addition the company has a product
for automated sample preparation of sexually transmitted diseases, as
well as applications for other infectious diseases in the product
pipeline
