GE Medical Systems has reached agreement with ART Advanced Research Technologies Inc under which GE will act as exclusive worldwide distributor for ART's pre-clinical optical molecular imaging system, SAMI, used in research and development for new therapeutic and diagnostic drugs.

GE Medical Systems and ART announced the agreement in advance of the 2nd Annual Society for Molecular Imaging conference. Terms were not disclosed.

ART's system is an optical fluorescence molecular imaging device developed to help pharmaceutical companies and research laboratories to better understand disease and reduce the development cycle for new drugs.

The technology is based on ART's proprietary time domain optical imaging technology. With the use of specialized laser sources and sensitive detectors, it non-invasively images tissue in-vivo and reveals the biological distribution and concentration of fluorescent-labeled markers, which are introduced into tissue as part of the testing process for new therapeutic and diagnostic drugs.

In turn, the molecular imager can help researchers and pharmaceutical companies quickly demonstrate the effectiveness of a potential drug or observe its side effects on organs not targeted by the treatment.

"This agreement with ART is another example of GE's ongoing commitment to Molecular Imaging," said Joe Hogan, President and CEO of GE Medical Systems. "In the future, optical imaging technology will help GE deliver better tools to clinicians to identify molecular markers of disease. Today, it helps GE provide better tools to our pharmaceutical and research customers' developing life-saving therapies and diagnostics."