GE HealthCare Technologies Inc. GEHC announced an expansion of its collaboration with NVIDIA Corporation NVDA yesterday. The latest partnership expansion aims to advance AI-driven autonomous solutions designed to ease the growing burden on healthcare professionals.
GE HealthCare aims to develop AI-enabled X-ray and ultrasound systems by leveraging the new NVIDIA Isaac for Healthcare platform, built on NVDA’s three computers utilized to build physical AI, including NVIDIA Omniverse for robotic simulation workflows. Using the NVIDIA Cosmos platform for synthetic data generation, physics-based sensor simulation, imitation and reinforcement learning, GEHC plans to train, test and tune autonomous ultrasound and X-ray devices in a virtual environment before deployment in the physical world.
The latest collaboration is expected to significantly strengthen GE HealthCare’s diagnostic imaging offerings, thus boosting its imaging business.
Likely Trend of GEHC Stock Following the News
Following the announcement, shares of the company gained nearly 0.1% in today’s pre-market trading.
Historically, the company has gained a top-line boost from its various product innovations. We expect market sentiment on the stock to remain positive around this announcement, too.
GE HealthCare currently has a market capitalization of $37.56 billion. It has an earnings yield of 5.7%, favorable than the industry’s 0.4%. In the last reported quarter, GEHC delivered an earnings surprise of 15.1%.
Significance of GE HealthCare’s Latest Partnership Expansion
The rising demand for X-rays and ultrasound, driven by an aging population, has led to significant radiology staff shortages. This is leading to challenges in healthcare systems, increasing the burden on healthcare providers and delaying critical diagnoses.
Per GE HealthCare, autonomous X-rays and ultrasound are promising new areas of development, using AI-enabled software to capture and analyze medical images. This will likely minimize the burden on technicians and radiologists. With NVIDIA’s strength in accelerated computing and AI and GE HealthCare’s position as a key global healthcare solutions provider, the collaboration plan has the potential to address some of healthcare’s biggest challenges.
GE HealthCare’s management is upbeat about its expanded relationship with NVDA and the potential of autonomous X-ray and ultrasound as it aims to unlock more automated solutions that enhance efficiency, standardize imaging and help ease the burden of increased volumes and double-digit staff shortages on healthcare professionals.
NVIDIA’s management believes that working together with GEHC to train and test autonomous solutions will likely accelerate the future of medical imaging capabilities, starting with the two most widely used modalities — X-ray and ultrasound.
Industry Prospects in Favor of GEHC
Per a report by MarketsandMarkets, the global diagnostic imaging market size was $26.5 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach $34.6 billion in 2028 at a CAGR of 5.5%. Factors like technological advancements, the rising prevalence of diseases and the increasing focus on early diagnosis are likely to drive the market.
Given the market potential, the latest expanded collaboration is expected to provide a significant boost to GE HealthCare’s business.
GE HealthCare’s Recent Developments
This month, GE HealthCare announced its new Genesis solutions, a portfolio of cloud enterprise imaging software-as-a-service solutions. These cloud solutions, are designed to help enhance healthcare organizations’ efficiency and precision, streamline workflows and optimize the use of capital and IT resources.
Last month, GE HealthCare unveiled Freelium, a next-generation sealed magnet platform that aims to enable high-quality Magnetic Resonance imaging with less than 1% of the helium used in conventional magnet technology, thereby supporting both diagnostic accuracy and sustainability goals.
GEHC’s Share Price Performance
Shares of the company have lost 9.6% in the past year against the industry’s 9.6% rise and the S&P 500’s gain of 7.9%.
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GE HealthCare’s Zacks Rank & Key Picks
Currently, GEHC carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
A couple of better-ranked stocks in the broader medical space are Cardinal Health, Inc. CAH and Boston Scientific Corporation BSX.
Cardinal Health, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present, has an estimated long-term growth rate of 9.5%. CAH’s earnings surpassed estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 9.6%. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Cardinal Health’s shares have gained 16.9% against the industry’s 3.2% decline in the past year.
Boston Scientific, carrying a Zacks Rank of 2 at present, has an estimated long-term growth rate of 13.3%. BSX’s earnings surpassed estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 8.3%.
Boston Scientific’s shares have rallied 47.8% compared with the industry’s 9.6% growth in the past year.
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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).