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Amersham Health, now GE Healthcare was the imaging diagnostics and therapy business of Amersham plc. The imaging business produced contrast agents that are injected into the body to improve pictures obtained through medical imaging scans.

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GE Medical Systems and Amersham announced in April 2004 the completion of a share exchange acquisition of Amersham Health by GE. The result of this acquisition is the new GE Healthcare, based in the UK, totally owned by General Electric (GE).

The British company was a producer of contrast-imaging agents used to enhance image quality in X-ray, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasound procedures. It was also a leading producer of radiopharmaceuticals used in nuclear medicine imaging. Amersham Health was the firm's imaging, diagnostics, and therapeutics segment. Amersham was involved in biotechnology research through its Amersham Biosciences unit, which makes scanners, sequencers, microarrays, industrial separations, and other research supplies.

Sonazoid™ is an ultrasound contrast agent (UCA) consisting of stabilized gas microbubbles in an aqueous suspension. Sonazoid™ has overcome the stability problems of first generation USCA and can produce myocardial perfusion images. Myocardial imaging using ultrasound contrast agents provides diagnosis of chronic heart disease and assessment of the coronary arteries and of the coronary blood flow reserve.
Sonazoid™ is taken up by healthy Kupffer cells in the liver and spleen, but break down in high amplitude ultrasound imaging modes such as color Doppler imaging. The bubble rupture produces a transient pressure wave, which results in a characteristic mosaic color pattern from tissues containing the microbubbles (induced acoustic emission). Liver tumors without Kupffer cells will not display the mosaic pattern and can therefore be identified easily.

From GE Healthcare;;
Optison is the first 'second generation USCA' marketed in the US.
Ultrasound contrast agents used during an ultrasound imaging procedure, enable more accurate diagnosis of the patient's heart condition. The application of Optison allows to image the endocardial borders of the heart, to see cardiac wall motion abnormalities and to guide the selection and monitoring of treatment.
Optison represents a class of microbubbles with a shell formed by sonicating a solution of capsules filled with a perfluoropropane gas. The high molecular weight slows microbubble dissolution and prolongs the enhancement for several minutes. The human albumin-stabilized cavitation bubbles have a surface tension of 0.9 N/m and a surface dilatational viscosity 0.08 msP.

'August 06, 2001 Molecular Biosystems Inc., a subsidiary of Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp, announced the amendment of the Optison Product Rights Agreement (OPRA) dated May 9, 2000 with Mallinckrodt Inc, a unit of Tyco Healthcare. Optison, an intravenous ultrasound contrast agent, was developed by MBI and is being marketed by Mallinckrodt in the U.S. and Europe. Under the amended agreement, MBI will receive an immediate cash payment plus additional unspecified royalties for a two-year period. The amendment of OPRA coincides with an announcement by Nycomed Amersham Imaging that Nycomed and Mallinckrodt will terminate their joint commercialization and development agreement for ultrasound contrast agents, including Optison, effective Dec. 31, 2001. Effective Jan. 1, 2002, all selling and marketing activities will be resumed solely by Nycomed Amersham.'