GE HealthCare agrees to buy radioactive-drug maker Sofie Biosciences for $945 million in cash

GE HealthCare agreed on Monday to buy Sofie Biosciences, a privately held U.S. maker of the short-lived radioactive drugs used in PET scans, for $945 million in cash, betting that owning the last step of that supply chain will matter more as new imaging agents reach the market.

The seller is the private equity firm Trilantic North America. Sofie runs 15 contract manufacturing sites in the U.S. with 21 cyclotrons, the particle accelerators that produce medical isotopes, plus a separate site focused on radioactive cancer therapies. It will become part of GE HealthCare's Pharmaceutical Diagnostics unit when the deal closes, which the company expects in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions.

GE HealthCare shares closed up 2.3% at $65.74 on Monday. The stock is still well below the 52-week high of $89.77 it reached in January.

Why the final mile matters

Many PET imaging agents are labeled with fluorine-18, which has a half-life of 110 minutes: a dose loses half its radioactivity in less than two hours. That means it has to be made near the hospitals and imaging centers that use it and delivered fast. GE HealthCare calls this the "final mile" of PET supply, and the deal gives it a footprint there for the first time.

Sofie already makes one of GE HealthCare's own products, Flyrcado, a PET agent approved for imaging heart disease. Under the agreement, Sofie will keep operating as an independent manufacturer and will continue to supply drugs for other radiopharmaceutical companies, while GE HealthCare keeps working with its other contract manufacturers. Kevin O'Neill, who runs the Pharmaceutical Diagnostics unit, said the company expects Sofie to grow "in the low double digits" as part of GE HealthCare.

An experimental cancer tracer comes with it

The purchase also gives GE HealthCare the U.S. rights to FAPI-74, an experimental PET tracer in late-stage testing; it already holds the rights outside the U.S. The tracer targets fibroblast activation protein, which is highly expressed in the connective-tissue cells around many tumors. Sofie said in October 2025 that it had agreed with the Food and Drug Administration on the design of two Phase 3 trials, in gastroesophageal and pancreatic cancer, each measuring how well the tracer detects cancer that has spread. In an earlier Phase 2 study in gastrointestinal cancers, the company reported a 94% positive predictive value for detecting disease. The tracer is not approved.

A bet on the fastest-growing unit

Pharmaceutical Diagnostics, which sells the imaging agents GE HealthCare says supported 140 million procedures last year, has been the company's growth engine. Its second-quarter revenue rose 15.6% to $843 million, with a segment profit margin of 29.6%, while total company revenue grew 5.7% to $5.3 billion. In the same July report, Chief Executive Peter Arduini said the company was reviewing strategic options for its Patient Care Solutions unit, whose revenue fell 13.3%.

Radioactive drugs have drawn dealmakers as their use in cancer care grows. In August, Curium agreed to buy Lantheus, a U.S. maker of radioactive diagnostics, for up to $114.50 a share in cash, including contingent payments, a deal valued at up to about $8 billion. GE HealthCare's purchase is far smaller, equal to about 3% of its roughly $29.7 billion stock market value at Monday's close.

The company said it expects the deal to add to its revenue growth, adjusted operating margin and adjusted earnings per share in the first full year of ownership.