Siemens launches PETNET services in India

Siemens Ltd has informed that Siemens Medical Solutions on March 27, 2008 announced the launch of its project to set up the Company's first molecular imaging biomarker production facility in Chennai. The new facility will enable the healthcare providers in and around Chennai to access the PET.CT technology for diagnosis of patients with life-threatening diseases such as cancers, as well as cardiac and neuro ailments. with this facility, Siemens makes another significant contribution to strengthen healthcare infrastructure in the country.

PETNET Solutions, a fully owned subsidiary of Siemens Medical solutions, operates the largest PET radiopharmacy network over 44 radiopharmacies and distribution centers at multiple locations that produce and distribute PET radiopharmaceuticals to hospitals, clinics, and research facility for PET imaging. The new facility in Chennai will produce and supply the requited radiopharmaceuticals to the hospitals that have PET.CT (Positron Emission Tomography. Computed Tomography) facilities, which will ease the burden of healthcare providers to produce their own radiopharmaceuticals. As a result, it will also help in bringing down the cost of nuclear medicine and expand its reach to a wider community. The new facility will house the Siemens Eclipse HP cyclotron which will be deployed to manufacture FDG (fluorodeoxyglucose), the imaging biomarker used in PET.CT facilities to assist with the diagnosis and staging of disease processes and to monitor cellular response to treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Currently, there is no PET.CT in Tamilnadu because of non availability the vital imaging biomarker FDG, which is essential to do the imaging in PET.CT. FDG has a half-life of only 110 minutes (losing half of its activity every 110 minutes) and hence needs to be produced locally. The new cyclotron will guarantee reliable delivery of PET radiopharmaceutical and will vastly increase availability of FDG, which means that many more patients in Chennai and in other locations within transporting distance will have access to world-class PET.CT imaging. For cancer patients, this will allow for earlier lesion detection and differential diagnosis of primary cancers, which is important for treatment and disease management.

Speaking on this initiative, Mr. Ragavan, Head-Siemens Medical Solutions-India said "In India, over a million people are diagnosed with cancer every year and there is a growing need among the healthcare providers to access the latest technology in fighting this life-threading disease.

PET.CTs help doctors to detect cancer early and comprehensively and help them and even patients to check if the treatment applied has been successful. World over, PET.CTs are helping doctors to understand the stage and progress of cancer and accordingly treat it more holistically. The local availability of FDG is very critical for healthcare providers, to put the PET.CT technology to the benefit of the patients, and therefore we are very proud to establish this facility which will fill a critical gap in the Healthcare Infrastructure of Tamil Nadu. Apart from Chennai, we are also considering expansion of this network to other parts of the Country."