What have been the key highlights of the Flyrcado launch, and what early results are you seeing in the US?
Flyrcado is a next-generation PET diagnostic for coronary artery disease, used in myocardial perfusion imaging. For many years, the standard of care has been SPECT, which you can think of as a black-and-white image compared to the high-definition quality of PET. Guidelines have long recommended PET for certain groups, such as obese patients and patients with dense breasts, but until Flyrcado the available PET agents – like ammonia or rubidium – had very short half-lives. That limited their utility for stress–rest protocols and meant many patients who should have received PET imaging did not.
With Flyrcado, with a half-life of around 100 minutes, we can manufacture the agent at a contract site and ship it to PET centres and nuclear cardiologists across the US. It supports true stress–rest imaging, including treadmill stress, and significantly broadens access for patients. In a market of roughly six million myocardial perfusion procedures a year, where historically less than 10% were PET scans, that is a major shift. At the same time, decoupling reimbursement for the scan from reimbursement for the drug has made these procedures more viable for hospitals and opened the door to further innovation and better access for patients.
Beyond cardiology, where do you see the biggest near-term clinical impact of radiopharmaceuticals and theranostics?
We see the greatest near-term impact in three disease areas: neurology, cardiology and oncology. In neurology, the first Alzheimer’s therapies are reaching the market, and if a patient is going onto an expensive treatment, they need a reliable diagnostic to guide that decision. Cardiology is another focus, with Flyrcado as a strong example of next-generation precision radiopharmaceuticals. In oncology, products like Pluvicto for prostate cancer and other agents for neuroendocrine tumours illustrate how powerful targeted radiopharmaceuticals can be, and we have a very active diagnostic pipeline there.
What differentiates GE Healthcare is that our radiopharmaceutical diagnostics business is integrated with imaging systems and digital tools. We do not just supply the tracer; we provide the cyclotrons, the chemistry systems, the SPECT and PET cameras, and the scheduling and AI solutions around them. That allows us to support healthcare systems in scaling precision diagnostics and therapies not only in major academic centres but also in places like Boise, Idaho. Giving patients in those settings access to the same standard of care as those at leading institutions is a core part of our mission.
We know that the advent of precision medicine raises important questions about accessibility and affordability?
Any complex therapy is likely to be expensive and to carry side effects, and by definition a precision therapy will not work for everyone. Our role as a diagnostics company is to identify which patients are likely to benefit. If there are five people in front of you, our job is to find the one who will respond to a particular therapy, and to support that decision with robust diagnostic evidence.
Equally important is what happens once a patient is on therapy. Diagnostics help monitor disease progression and assess whether the drug remains effective over time. If a therapy is not working, the most important step can be to take the patient off it, because the side effects and costs are no longer justified. So for us, it is not just about lowering costs but about delivering value: earlier, more accurate diagnosis, better patient selection and timely decisions about when to stop treatment.
How does the full acquisition of Nihon Medi-Physics (NMP) change your footprint in Japan and across Asia?
We are very excited about NMP. It is the leading provider of radiopharmaceuticals in Japan, and acquiring 100% of the company gives us a strong platform in a key market. Under its previous ownership, NMP had not fully focused on bringing in a new generation of diagnostics, and we are now working together to align its capabilities with our pipeline and accelerate access to these agents in Japan.
Japan is also an excellent base for broader regional growth. Some of our diagnostics have long half-lives and can be exported from Japan to markets such as China, Korea and Indonesia. We now have an expert team on the ground that can support those markets and partner with local players. Taken together, NMP becomes our Asia platform, complementing our strong positions in the US and Europe and giving us a truly global radiopharmaceutical footprint.
Has your strategy for manufacturing and capacity in the US evolved over the past year?
Our guiding principle is security of supply: having the right dose available for the right patient at the right time, wherever they are. In the United States, that means investing heavily in radiopharmaceutical capacity through an expanded contract manufacturing network. By the end of this year we expect more than 20 sites to be operational, and we aim to double or even triple that number so that patients across the country can access our products. This involves significant commitments to our partners, our US teams and the underlying infrastructure.
We are making similar investments in contrast media capacity globally, and the NMP platform supports our expansion in Asia.
Radiopharmaceuticals are inherently local – it is a bit like running a bakery: you “bake” in the morning and must deliver fresh to patients the same day.
That means you need local production close to the scanner. We have navigated major supply challenges over the years, from COVID to shipping disruption, and tariffs are simply another factor to manage within a global, resilient network.
You have announced partnerships with DeepHealth and NVIDIA. How do you expect AI to reshape your diagnostic workflows?
GE Healthcare is in a unique position because we combine imaging equipment, diagnostic tools and AI platforms. When you bring those together with longitudinal patient data, you can start to do very powerful things. We have, for example, gone back to historical clinical trial data and used AI to see whether we can reproduce trial outcomes based on what we know about patient cohorts and their responses. The correlations we are seeing highlight how important it will be to curate data sets carefully and use them to predict responses and outcomes.
There is also a very practical layer. CT exam volumes roughly double every decade, and MRI is on a similar trajectory, but the number of radiologists is not doubling. AI tools that help read exams, triage routine cases and allow radiologists to focus on the most complex studies will be essential to keep healthcare systems functioning. Beyond that, our work with partners like NVIDIA is about managing large data sets over time and extracting insights from them. Internally we talk about our “D3” strategy – bringing together devices, drugs and data – and AI is central to making that ecosystem work.
Looking ahead to 2026, what should our readers expect from GE Healthcare?
We have a very strong innovation pipeline coming to market. This year we showcased technologies such as photon-counting CT and full-body PET, which are the result of many years of investment and are designed to enable precision care at scale. In pharmaceutical diagnostics, we already have three key tracers – Seriana for oestrogen-positive breast tumours, Vismil in Alzheimer’s disease and Flyrcado for cardiac imaging – with additional pipeline developments underway, including in markets like Japan.
More broadly, we are focused on bringing our D3 concept to life: devices, digital and drugs working together, with customers as our north star and patient access at the centre. In Pharmaceutical Diagnostics alone we serve around 130 million patients a year, and that number is set to rise towards 140–150 million. As a former CFO, I do not measure success in dollars when I speak to our teams; I measure it in those patient numbers, because they show the scale of the impact we are having and what we aim to build on as we move into 2026.
