Roche and GE Healthcare, a division of the General Electric Company, have entered into collaboration aimed at developing personalized care for patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

In controlled clinical trials, patients taking a Roche anti-amyloid drug candidate for Alzheimer’s disease will be monitored clinically for drug response using GE’s positron emission tomography (PET) diagnostic imaging agent. This proprietary PET technology measures and tracks levels of beta-amyloid, a form of brain plaque believed to cause memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease patients. Previously, the presence of plaque could only be confirmed during autopsy.

Both Roche and GE will independently analyze patient data to monitor the progression of the disease and then share information to validate the efficacy of both the therapeutic product and the diagnostic tool. The data gathered would aid both companies in submitting necessary and comprehensive data to regulatory authorities for approvals, a release from GE Healthcare said.

Peter Hug, Roche’s Global Head of Pharma Partnering said, “Using GE’s innovative technology allows Roche to test the efficacy of our product more accurately than was previously possible, which in the long term, will help us efficiently advance through clinical development, potentially helping patients sooner.”