RadNet stock surges 20% to all-time high following news of GE HealthCare partnership

Imaging center operator RadNet’s stock surged 20.5% on Monday, touching an all-time high and ending the day at $86.38, Reuters noted.

Year to date, the stock price has risen 150%, adding nearly $52 in value in 2024. Also on Monday, the Los Angeles-based radiology chain announced a new partnership with GE HealthCare, which experts cited as one reason for the stock bump. 

Under the “strategic collaboration,” RadNet subsidiary DeepHealth and GE will develop solutions that harness AI to address key challenges in the specialty. This will include helping increase the efficiency of image interpretation and reporting, enabling collaboration across care teams, and enhancing operational efficiency. 

“GE HealthCare has a legacy of imaging and AI innovation and is committed to our continued pursuit of new technologies that push the boundaries of what is possible to enable precision care,” Roland Rott, president and CEO of imaging for GE, said in an announcement. “This new collaboration with DeepHealth harnesses our combined strengths to address critical challenges in healthcare today.”

Their new “SmartTechnology” solutions will combine GE’s imaging expertise and scale with RadNet’s “deep experience” in healthcare delivery and DeepHealth’s AI-powered informatics portfolio. The companies said they will initially work to bring together DeepHealth’s SmartMammo workflow and clinical solution with GE’s Senographe Pristina mammography system, adding built-in AI support to breast cancer screening. 

RadNet said the agreement will enable GE HealthCare to distribute SmartMammo and other solutions to imaging providers in the U.S. as part of the manufacturer’s “comprehensive portfolio of imaging technologies.” The companies also plan to explore additional areas of collaboration related to other modalities and clinical domains. 

Company earnings call

RadNet leaders further discussed the collaboration during the company’s third quarter earnings call Monday. CEO Howard Berger, MD, said their objective is to make imaging hardware more capable, enriching diagnostic equipment to better service clinicians and patients across all imaging settings. 

AI solutions will be embedded directly into the gantry of the GE mammography system, allowing for “turnkey operation,” he noted. RadNet has begun offering breast cancer screening in malls and Walmart locations, and leaders see this as a way to easily continue scaling up. 

“We will be able to install these systems and simply need a power source and a connection to the internet to essentially make this function in the same way that a patient coming into a RadNet center would experience,” Berger told investors, according to a transcript of the call provided by Seeking Alpha. “In other words, all of the information systems and clinical tools, which would include the [Enhanced Breast Cancer Detection] program as part of our AI clinical package, will be available as part of an offering that the GE HealthCare system and their marketing and sales force will help distribute for us. So, this will allow for greater, faster deployment of these systems not only in the more conventional way that people are used to getting their mammography, but in nonconventional sites where imaging can be performed like in the Walmart and mall locations.”

RadNet and GE HealthCare also see market opportunities with OB-GYN offices that might offer mammography as part of wellness visits. Along with performing the mammogram, the solution aids providers with patient registration, billing, facilitating storage of medical records, and interpreting images. 

Berger described the partnership as a “software licensing arrangement with GE.” Through their sales and marketing team, the Chicago-based imaging manufacturer will distribute the solution for RadNet on GE equipment. DeepHealth and RadNet also will continue to offer mammo AI solutions on their own to other imaging providers, with their software still compatible across most mammography systems. 

“We're playing with all of the [business] models because some people might want to do this more as a capital investment, some people might want to do it as a variable expense,” Berger told investors. “We're capable of doing that because we not only put the clinical AI tools on there like the EBCD program and reporting tools, but also the office-based generative AI tools, which are the radiology products that manage the rest of the other office requirements like scheduling and billing in a turnkey operation.”