GE Healthcare and Takeda Pharmaceutical announced that they have entered into an agreement for research and development in the field of hepatic fibrosis, a key factor in the diagnosis and treatment of liver diseases

According to the terms of agreement, GE Healthcare will provide Takeda with its diagnostic imaging technology for use to generate a liver stiffness map as part of the research and development work Takeda is conducting on liver diseases.

"It gives me great pleasure to have been able to build this alliance with GE Healthcare to develop therapeutic drugs to treat liver diseases. This alliance will assist efforts to develop new therapeutic options that ease the burden on the patient. Moving forward, we will continue to put the patient first and incorporate a wide range of innovations into the field of drug discovery," said Mr Tadataka Yamada, chief medical and scientific officer at Takeda.

"It is extremely gratifying to me that, through this collaboration, our technologies will be of use in the development of treatments for the liver diseases that are of particular importance not just in Asia, but worldwide," said Mr Akihiko Kumagai, chairman of GE Healthcare Japan with overall responsibility for liver disease programs. He added, "We have been focusing efforts on developing technologies to help provide solutions for liver cancer. As one location in our global research and development network, Japan, whose strategy is to create solutions for an aging population, has been a driving force behind these efforts. "