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Food and Drug Administration approval earlier this year of technetium-labeledsingle-photon emission computed tomography cardiac perfusion agentsshould boost clinical demand for SPECT cameras. Market activitywill not pick up dramatically, however, until

ADAC Laboratories hopes to gain market leadership in nuclear medicineby 1994. Coming from a vendor that saw nuclear medicine revenuesslide 30% last year, that spells confidence. Overtaking Siemens,current nuclear leader, represents a major hurdle. To

Alliance Imaging, a La Palma, CA, imaging services firm, is goingpublic again. Alliance originally raised public equity througha listing on the NASDAQ exchange in 1987 (SCAN 9/16/87). But managementtook the company private with a leveraged buy-out (LBO)

Medicare's new capital reimbursement rules (SCAN 3/13/91) havenot dampened hospital interest in magnetic resonance imaging purchases,according to Steve Shearer, an analyst for MD Buyline. Demand for assessment of proposed MRI and computed

Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) firms are making progressin their efforts to standardize the bone-mineral density measurementsof competing DXA machines (SCAN 5/8/91). A committee composedof DXA manufacturers, researchers and other parties

Positron emission tomography users seeking less expensive equipmentfor producing PET radiopharmaceuticals have several options. Sometechnologies, however, are closer to commercial and clinical realitythan others. Several cyclotron manufactures are

Philips Medical Systems and AT&T restructured their CommViewjoint venture in picture archiving and communications systemslast month. The two partners had been discussing ways to reducecosts and make the venture more profitable since late last

Diasonics signed a cooperative technological partnership lastmonth with Silicon Graphics, a Mountain View, CA, image processingworkstation supplier. Although the medical vendor may use complete Silicon Graphicsworkstations in future products, Diasonics

Toshiba America Medical Systems has promoted several executivesin its ultrasound business following the departure of Daniel Duganto Acuson earlier this month (SCAN 4/10/91). Rick Smith, formerly national sales manager for ultrasoundat TAMS, has

International investors are showing increased interest in U.S.medical firms, despite the appeal of a unified European market,according to Jack W. Cumming, president of WDI International. WDI offers strategic business consulting and investment

Scotsman Buildings entered the medical imaging market last yearwith an agreement to supply GE Medical Systems with modular imagingfacilities to service the vendor's U.S. military contracts. Scotsman, a division of the Scotsman Group of Baltimore, isin

The British government has submitted legislation to Parliamentthat would privatize the British Technology Group. No significantchanges are expected in the firm's patent licensing business,said Derek Schafer, president and CEO of BTG (USA) of Gulph

Three-dimensional ultrasound could increase power and expand applicationsfor the rapidly growing imaging modality. Researchers workingwith Philips Ultrasound, an early developer of 3-D ultrasound,are peering into parts of the body that were inaccessible

Imatron and Picker International terminated their North Americandistribution agreement for Imatron's ultrafast computed tomographyscanner last month. The two medical imaging vendors parted ways after Imatron signedon Siemens in a collaborative effort

Ultrasound manufacturers are adept at image acquisition and displaytechnology, but these skills may not be pertinent to the developmentof three-dimensional and other image processing techniques. Vendorsmight be well-advised to outsource this technology

Toshiba trimmed its engineering and manufacturing staff at ToshibaAmerica MRI (TAMI) in South San Francisco by about 3% last month.The reduction was aimed at eliminating redundant functions resultingfrom the acquisition of Diasonics' magnetic resonance

Acuson lost a veteran marketing executive last month, promotedseveral top executives, and brought back a former manager whohad left the firm to head up Toshiba's U.S. ultrasound business. "We have made a number of changes in our organizationthat

Siemens will introduce a compact 1-tesla MRI scanner next weekat the Society for Magnetic Resonance Imaging meeting in Chicago.The vendor claims its new offering will fit in more places thanmost mid-field scanners. The space requirement for the

The court cases settled by GE Medical Systems and three independentservice organizations last month all involved GE's assertion ofcopyright protection for its advanced scanner service software.They were not, however, carbon copy agreements, as

Philips Medical Systems has installed the first magnetic resonanceangiography package for its 0.5-tesla Gyroscan T5 magnetic resonanceimaging system. The premier North American clinical test siteis New Britain General Hospital in New Britain, CT.The

Philips Medical Systems International has opened a regional headquartersfor Southeast Asia in Bangkok, Thailand. The existing PhilipsMedical organization in Thailand will be expanded to provide salesand customer support in the member countries of the

Medical Imaging Technologies (Meditech) has encountered delaysin its anticipated launch of fixed-site positron emission tomographyservices. The date has been pushed back from the first to thesecond quarter of this year. The formerly private company

Greenberg Radiology Institute of Highland Park, IL, installedthe first Siemens ECAT 953 positron emission tomography systemin the U.S. last year, according to executive director BenjaminF. Armbruster. The system was developed and produced by the

Imatron, a pioneer in ultrafast computed tomography scanning,signed on Siemens as a product development and marketing partnerthis month. The Siemens relationship involves future CT products and willnot impact Imatron's distribution contracts with

Siemens has made substantial changes in the design and layoutof its magnetic resonance imaging equipment over the past fewmonths. The vendor is suggesting changes in computer layout, consoledesign and radio-frequency shielding configurations for

Merge Technologies of Milwaukee has signed OEM agreements withPhilips and Toshiba for supply of its digital medical imaginginterface technology, according to Stuart C. Gardner, vice presidentof sales and marketing. Merge will customize interfaces for

Philips Medical Systems closed its North American dental imagingdivision in January, returning distribution rights and serviceresponsibilities for a panoramic x-ray unit to its manufacturer,Soredex of Helsinki. Soredex Medical Systems, the firm's U.S.

Cardiovascular Imaging Systems (CVIS) and Siemens Ultrasound haveentered into a joint product development/distribution relationshipin intraluminal ultrasound. Siemens showed the CVIS technologyon its SI 1200 high-end cardiology ultrasound system and SI