The Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA) has expanded its membership to include the radiopharmaceutical industry. These companies develop, manufacture and distribute the drugs used in conjunction with nuclear medicine imaging technologies, such as PET.

“MITA saw an opportunity to combine both halves of nuclear medicine: the drugs and devices that work together to provide physicians with the images they need to diagnose and treat disease,” said Dave Fisher, executive director of MITA.

The radiopharmaceutical industry will work with established equipment member companies within MITA to form the PET Working Group, which will focus on four priorities:

• Improving the regulatory environment for the approval of imaging agents;
• Expanding public insurance coverage of these agents to ensure that patients have access to these tests;
• Conducting research to broaden the evidentiary base of cost effectiveness for PET imaging; and
• Educating the medical community about the appropriate use and value of these techniques.

Over the last eight months, MITA said its membership has grown by 20 percent, adding that the inclusion of the radiopharmaceutical community has the potential to equal that expansion.