GE Healthcare, on Tuesday, announced

GE Healthcare, on Tuesday, announced a tie-up with Hyderabad-based Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) to open 10 oncology centres in India at an investment of Rs 200 crore over next two years.

The first of such centre would come up at Vijaywada, followed centres in Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Thrishur, Raipur, Indore, Coimbatore and Patna.

Providing details of the facility, B Bhaskar Rao, managing director and chief executive officer, KIMS, said that these centres would also be capable of providing cardiology and neurology diagnostic services.

He said that “The idea is to cut costs. For example, we will set up only three cyclotrons for 10 centres and will depend on logistics planning to transfer the isotope.”

The medical technologies and services provider also announced its plans to invest $50 million (around Rs 231 crore) in developing a low-cost PET/CT scan system for diagnosis of various diseases, like early detection of cancer, heart diseases and brain disorders.

Speaking to pressperson(s), V Raja, president and chief executive officer (South Asia), GE Healthcare, and Managing Director, Wipro GE Healthcare, said that they plan to offer the facilities at around 40 percent less than the current market prices.

He said that GE Healthcare would carry out R&D on the new equipment at its existing facility in Bangalore and would be hiring another 30 people for the same, he said “the system should be ready in two to three years,” further adding that “GE Healthcare joined hands with Varian Medical Systems to provide turnkey assistance to equip the oncology centres.”

Varian Medical Systems is a California-based company engaged in manufacturing of medical devices for treating cancer.

Ms Terri S. Bresenham, Vice-President, Molecular Imaging, GE Healthcare, said that “The idea behind setting up the facility in India is that these medical equipment will cost about 30-40 per cent cheaper.”

“It is a high-end product. What we wish to do is design a product with the same capability but at a cheaper cost so that cancer detection and treatment becomes more affordable in India. We will be considering exporting some of the units we manufacture at the Bangalore facility to neighbouring markets,” said Raja