Endra Life Sciences and GE Healthcare are teaming up for the development of Endra’s Thermo Acoustic Enhanced Ultrasound (TAEUS), a system that will detect tiny amounts of pressure changes deep within tissues and generate diagnostic insight currently only available on CT or MR exams.

The technology will allow physicians to use their existing ultrasound systems to visualize tissue health, function, composition, and monitor therapeutic interventions at the point-of-care without the use of ionizing radiation or contrast agents.

According to Endra, it will also improve access, clinical effectiveness and safety while bringing down hospital expenses. It believes that TAEUS could have broad potential clinical applications, including noninvasively quantifying fat in the liver for diagnosis of fatty liver disease.
As part of the collaboration, GE will support Endra’s efforts to commercialize the technology, provide equipment and technical advice, and also facilitate introductions to the technology to GE ultrasound customers. In turn, Endra will give GE certain rights of first offer with respect to manufacturing and licensing rights for the target application, according to the announcement.

“We believe that Endra’s technology has the potential to bring significant new capabilities to ultrasound — which aligns well with GE Healthcare’s mission of broadening access to high-quality, cost-effective health care,” said Brian McEathron, GE’s vice president and general manager for radiology and vascular ultrasound, in a statement.

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