GE HealthCare Fuels Surge in Ultrasound Investment, Driven by Demand from Interventional and Remote Surgical Applications

Original Title: GE Sparks Surge in Ultrasound Equipment Investment, Telemedicine for Interventional Procedures Drives Demand

Leading medical imaging equipment manufacturers are gradually expanding their ultrasound systems from examination rooms to operating rooms, providing intraoperative visual imaging support that enables surgeons to visualize patients' internal organs in real time during surgical, interventional, or robotic-assisted procedures. These applications have already been successfully implemented in brain, spinal, and abdominal surgeries.

GE Healthcare recently announced its first acquisition since CEO Larry Culp took office over two years ago, acquiring BK Medical, an ultrasound medical company under Altaris Capital Partners, for $1.45 billion. GE Healthcare expects the acquisition to be completed in 2022 and to rapidly drive revenue growth, with BK Medical to be integrated into GE Healthcare's other ultrasound business.

Adding the rapidly growing and relatively new real-time surgical visualization system to GE HealthCare's pre- and post-operative ultrasound capabilities will complete the end-to-end product portfolio across the entire care continuum from diagnosis to treatment.

BK Medical’s intraoperative devices can be used during cancer surgery to precisely locate biopsy or ablation needles, as well as to monitor blood flow before and after tumor resection. The company also offers sensors in multiple sizes, capable of accessing the most inaccessible intracranial regions, and can be integrated into laparoscopic probes mounted on robotic arms.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, ultrasound portfolios such as GE Healthcare's generated approximately $3 billion in revenue, and demand for GE's point-of-care cardiac and pulmonary diagnostic probes also increased as the pandemic spread.

Currently, GE Healthcare and Philips dominate the global market share. Siemens Healthineers' ultrasound business has underperformed in recent years, with reports indicating the company is considering divesting the division. In 2001, Siemens acquired the US ultrasound giant Acuson, and in 2015, it introduced the world's first wireless transducer ultrasound system. However, since then, Siemens' ultrasound business has been overtaken internationally by Hitachi and Toshiba, and in China by Mindray.

GE's acquisition of BK Medical will further consolidate its leading position in the global ultrasound market. Since last year, ultrasound equipment companies have begun to attract strong interest from capital markets. Handheld ultrasound device manufacturer Exo raised $220 million in a funding round last year, while competitor Butterfly Network also went public earlier this year through a $1.5 billion SPAC transaction.

According to Bloomberg data analysis, global sales of ultrasound medical devices are expected to exceed $16 billion this year, representing a year-on-year increase of over 260% compared to 2020.

“Ultrasound, as a non-invasive surgical assistance method, is garnering significant attention within the industry, and the demand for tele-ultrasound will continue to grow in the future,” Qi Peng, a robotics innovation researcher at Tongji University, told a Yicai reporter.

With the advancement of new technologies, the field of ultrasound continues to achieve ongoing innovation. Ultrasound devices are becoming increasingly miniaturized and intelligent. Internationally, last October, GE Healthcare's AI cardiovascular ultrasound system received FDA approval. Recently, in surgical applications, Gynesonics' ultrasound-guided ablation system also obtained FDA approval for the precise treatment of uterine fibroids.

Through a 5G and AI-based remote ultrasound diagnostic system, highly skilled ultrasound physicians can remotely diagnose patients with complex diseases. Technological platforms such as the “5G Remote Smart Ultrasound Diagnostic System” also facilitate the broader application of ultrasound medicine in primary healthcare institutions, enabling more patients to receive cost-effective and efficient diagnostic examinations.

A leading ultrasound medicine expert at a Grade 3A hospital in Shanghai told a Yicai reporter that within China's medical device sector, the domestic substitution of ultrasound equipment has achieved notable progress. Currently, the market share of Chinese-made ultrasound devices has gradually approached that of the traditionally dominant multinational giants. Meanwhile, domestic brands' import substitution initiatives have also begun to shift from the low- and mid-end markets toward competition in the high-end product segment.

The aforementioned experts told a Yicai reporter that ultrasound medicine is gaining widespread recognition and has already integrated with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and 5G. In the future, ultrasound applications will become increasingly extensive, covering all aspects of diagnosis and treatment, including anesthesia intubation and ultrasound-guided needle insertion. Meanwhile, ultrasound equipment will also continue to evolve toward increasingly specialized and segmented directions.

He also noted that the accuracy of ultrasound is continually improving, with the current margin of error being only approximately 1 to 2 millimeters. However, there is still room for improvement in ultrasound equipment, such as how to apply it to scenarios where ultrasound cannot currently be utilized.

Yicai reporters have learned that research teams in China are currently developing high-precision ultrasound equipment capable of micrometer-level accuracy. In the future, ultrasound probes will only need to scan the body surface to yield diagnostic results comparable to pathological examinations. This technology is expected to play a pivotal role in fields such as early cancer screening.