GE Healthcare partners with healthcare startup to fight breast cancer

By Raaghav G R

Posted on November 10, 2017

In a rare corporate – startup partnership event, the healthcare giant, GE Healthcare has partnered with the medical technology startup, UE LifeSciences to commercialise the startup’s medical device for early detection of breast cancer among women. The startup which is backed by Biocon founder, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and Manipal group icon, Ranjan Pai, has developed a radiation-free, portable health device called ‘iBreastExam’ (iBE) to detect breast anomalies and thereby possible breast cancer in women. Read more on Partnerships

“I think this is one of the best ideas that I have seen in a long time”, said Terri Bresenham, president and CEO of GE Healthcare Sustainable Healthcare Solutions.

GE Healthcare, which is the 18 billion dollars worth healthcare arm of GE in the US, said that the partnership with UE LifeSciences is an effort to improve healthcare outcomes in developing countries. This partnership is particularly aimed at providing better healthcare facilities in the rural parts of India as many people there don’t even have one clinic per village and as a consequence, die from diseases born out of natural calamities (for example: water stagnation and mosquito caused diseases like malaria, dengue, chikunguniya, philaria, etcetera).

“More lives are lost to breast cancer in India than any other country”, said Mihir Shah, founder and CEO of UE LifeSciences.

The startup so far has checked more than 75,000 women and treated more than 100 breast cancer patients.

“We have to downstage cancer. It is a difficult task because most people go for diagnosis when it is too late”, said Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, chairperson and managing director of Biocon and an investor in UE LifeSciences.

This partnership between GE Healthcare and UE LifeSciences is the need of the hour as far as rural India is concerned because many Indian villages don’t even have one clinic, forget about detecting and treating cancer and other deadly diseases! If women die, then the population of a country slowly declines. Therefore, we have to check women mortality rate and mortality rate in general on a priority basis. The Government of India should fund, promote and incubate innovative and useful startups like UE LifeSciences. Read more on Startup News

GE Healthcare partners with healthcare startup to fight breast cancer