CTI wins $20 million in financing

PET developer CTI received a $20-million boost this month from venture capital firm First Union Capital Partners (FUCP). The Knoxville, TN, company will use the capital to underwrite its own growth efforts, as well as those of its affiliate, PETNet Pharmaceutical Services of Norcross, GA. With PETNet, CTI plans to focus on developing its lutetium oxyortho-silicate (LSO) detector material, and new PET-compound manufacturing and distribution centers, according to Terry Douglass, president of CTI.

Charlotte, NC-based FUCP’s funding feeds the momentum CTI has generated in the past year. In June, the company won interest at the Society of Nuclear Medicine show in Los Angeles when Siemens Medical Systems displayed images collected by a combination CT/PET scanner developed by CTI PET Systems, the PET joint venture between Siemens and CTI (SCAN 6/24/98). Dr. Henry Wagner of Johns Hopkins in Baltimore named a Siemens CT/PET image as Image of the Year in his post-SNM roundup speech. And in July, CTI acquired Advanced Crystal Technology from Nihon Kessho Koogaku, a subsidiary of Mitsui Mining and Smelting, a deal that gives CTI increased access to bismuth germinate (BGO), a key detector component in PET devices (SCAN 8/4/99).