GE HealthCare pays $945 million for SOFIE Biosciences' 15-plant PET isotope network
GE HealthCare agreed on October 5 to pay $945 million in cash for SOFIE Biosciences, a private network of 15 U.S. plants whose PET doses stay usable for only a few hours after they are made. Ten days later it won European CE-mark clearance for a compact cyclotron that lets hospitals make their own isotopes, putting the $20.6 billion company on both sides of the same supply chain.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
A decay clock sets the geography
GE HealthCare−1.11% — GE HealthCare, down 1.11 percent as of its last quote (Nasdaq: GEHC), the imaging and diagnostics group, agreed on October 5 to pay $945 million in cash for SOFIE Biosciences, a contract manufacturer of PET (positron emission tomography) radiopharmaceuticals, from the private equity firm Trilantic North America 1. Fluorine-18, the workhorse PET isotope, decays with a half-life of about 110 minutes, so every dose must be made within a short drive of its scanner 1.
What the money buys is a U.S. network of 15 manufacturing sites running 21 cyclotrons, the particle accelerators that make medical isotopes, plus a development site for theranostics, an imaging tracer paired with a therapy built on the same molecule 1. Those sites already produce GE HealthCare's Flyrcado tracer for coronary artery disease 12.
The Financial Times reported the coming sale on September 13; Trilantic's 2024 stake had valued SOFIE at up to $550 million 2. The segment SOFIE joins, Pharmaceutical Diagnostics, booked $2.9 billion of revenue last year inside a $20.6 billion company 21.
The buyer: revenue up year over year in 11 of 12 quarters as a public company
Data
| Revenue | |
|---|---|
| Q3 '23 | $4.82B |
| Q4 '23 | $5.21B |
| Q1 '24 | $4.65B |
| Q2 '24 | $4.84B |
| Q3 '24 | $4.86B |
| Q4 '24 | $5.32B |
| Q1 '25 | $4.78B |
| Q2 '25 | $5.01B |
| Q3 '25 | $5.14B |
| Q4 '25 | $5.7B |
| Q1 '26 | $5.13B |
| Q2 '26 | $5.3B |
The cheapest deal on the board buys plumbing
GE HealthCare estimates the purchase will lift revenue growth, adjusted EBIT margin and adjusted earnings per share in its first full year 1. Kevin O'Neill, who runs the segment, said SOFIE should grow "in the low double digits" and let the company participate "across the radiopharmaceutical value stream" 1. BTIG analyst Ryan Zimmerman told clients the extra capacity could ease bottlenecks holding back radiopharmaceutical adoption 3.
Behind the bet sits a pipeline of about 20 PET tracers and more than 30 radiotherapeutics in development, counted by MEDraysintell, a radiopharmaceutical market data firm whose 2025 figures the announcement cites 1. The deal also brings U.S. rights to FAPI-74, a Phase III tracer built to image many cancer types; GE HealthCare has held the rights outside the United States since 2023 14.
The cheapest big radiopharma buy on the board is capacity, not a drug candidate
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Bristol Myers Squibb buys RayzeBio, 2023 | $4.1B |
| Novartis buys AAA, 2017 | $3.9B |
| GE HealthCare buys SOFIE, 2026 | $0.95B |
It sells the machine and owns the road
Ten days after signing, on October 15, GE HealthCare won CE mark, the European regulatory clearance allowing sale in Europe, for MINItrace Magni, a compact cyclotron for making fluorine-18, carbon-11, oxygen-15 and nitrogen-13 in-house 5. It also added Copper-64 to its PETtrace platform, beyond Gallium-68 (2022) and Zirconium-89 (early 2026), feeding research on Copper-64/Copper-67 theranostic pairs in prostate and HER2-positive breast cancer 56.
The company now sells the machine that lets a large medical center make its own doses, and it owns the regional network that would otherwise deliver them; GE HealthCare earns whichever option a hospital picks. SOFIE will keep supplying rival radiopharmaceutical makers after closing, the agreement says 13. The bull case: compact cyclotrons suit providers without large-scale production infrastructure, so the two bets split the market rather than collide 5.
Vienna, antitrust and rivals' contracts are the next tests
Watch the European nuclear medicine congress in Vienna from October 17, the antitrust review toward a first-half 2027 close, and whether rivals keep their SOFIE supply contracts 513. The $945 million prices one question: whether Pharmaceutical Diagnostics becomes a recurring theranostics supply business or a capital-intensive network selling a commodity to its own customers.
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
