General Electric has closed the all-stock deal valued at US$9.5 billion to acquire Amersham, which has become GE Healthcare Technologies.

The new division is part of GE Healthcare, which had previously been GE Medical Systems until a quiet name change several weeks ago. The transformation, meant to be more than name only and indicate GE's commitment to diagnostic health care, includes the rollout of a new web site, www.gehealthcare.com.

Amersham's site is still up and running, but the top of the home page says that the company is now part of GE Healthcare, which is based in the UK. GE Healthcare Technologies has its headquarters in the US, while the GE Healthcare Biosciences unit is in Little Chalfont, UK, where Amersham had been based.

GE Healthcare aims to play a role in "truly shaping a new age of medicine," said Joe Hogan, president and CEO of GE Healthcare Technologies. That business unit includes medical imaging, IT, patient monitoring systems and healthcare services.

Its parent division, GE Healthcare, will, in part, be focused on developing tools that help doctors provide better diagnoses, detecting diseases earlier and shaping the emerging field of personalised medicine, he said.

"The idea is to predict [the likelihood of disease], diagnose, inform and treat, " he said. Speaking of the predictive and preventive element of GE Healthcare's work, which includes molecular diagnoses and genetics, Hogan said, "If we can detect [disease] early, you might never see it or feel it."

Sir William Castell, who was Amersham's CEO, is now the president and CEO of GE Healthcare, which includes medical imaging systems, medical diagnostics and information technologies, as well as genetic research and drug development tools. Amersham's main business areas were medical diagnostics, protein separations and discovery systems.

The combined company has US$14 billion in sales, and is the largest diagnostic healthcare company in the world, according to a letter from Castell posted at the GE Healthcare web site. It employs more than 42,500 people in more than 100 countries.

GE had been expanding its molecular imaging business before it made a bid for Amersham last October. The company does business in a range of markets, including healthcare, energy, automotive and aviation. It is also a well-known US brand name, making appliances, consumer electronics, adhesive and sealants. GE also is in the personal and business financial services markets and owns the US NBC television network.