Intelerad Archives - The Imaging Wire

GE to Buy Intelerad in Massive $2.3B Acquisition

Posted on November 21, 2025November 21, 2025 by Brian Casey

In what could be the biggest radiology IT acquisition in years, GE HealthCare will acquire medical image management software company Intelerad in a purchase valued at $2.3B. The acquisition will bolster GE’s position in the outpatient image management segment, which is rapidly shifting from on-premises PACS models to cloud-based environments.

Intelerad was founded in Montreal in 1999 as a PACS developer and has grown through acquisitions of its own in recent years.

U.K. private equity firm Hg took a controlling interest in Intelerad in 2020, and the company soon embarked on a series of acquisitions that rolled up smaller imaging IT companies like Digisonics (2020), Ambra Health (2021), Insignia (2021), Lumedx (2021), Life Image (2022), and PenRad Technologies (2022).

After taking a few years to digest the new companies, Intelerad began focusing on moving its technology and customers to cloud-based architecture, such as by releasing a cloud-native version of its InteleHeart software and by moving its PACS, VNA, and image-sharing applications to AWS cloud hosting.

GE needs no introduction, of course, but the company clearly sees the attraction of Intelerad’s core market in outpatient imaging, which complements GE’s focus on larger hospitals and health systems.

In a conversation with The Imaging Wire, Scott Miller, president and CEO, Solutions for Enterprise Imaging at GE HealthCare, explained several of the acquisition’s advantages …

Imaging exams are moving from hospitals to outpatient centers due to lower costs.
Outpatient facilities are following hospitals in moving their data to the cloud, putting Intelerad at the intersection of two major trends.
Intelerad’s geographic focus has been on English-speaking countries, giving GE the opportunity to plug Intelerad products into its international distribution network.

GE estimates that Intelerad will generate $270M in revenue in its first full year under GE ownership.

Intelerad’s sales have been growing at a rate in the low double digits, and GE expects that pace to accelerate.

Is the new acquisition a sign of growing consolidation in the radiology AI and image management sectors?

Other recent purchases in 2025 include Radiology Partners’ purchase of Cognita Imaging, Lunit’s acquisition of Prognosia, and GE’s own purchase of icometrix, completed earlier this month. RadNet also acquired iCAD earlier in the year.

The Takeaway

GE’s acquisition of Intelerad offers multiple benefits to the multimodality OEM, from Intelerad’s presence in the outpatient imaging sector to its experience in cloud-based image management and broad product portfolio. The question is whether the purchase spurs other big iron vendors to answer with acquisitions of their own.

Intelerad Becomes the Image Exchange Leader

Posted on September 16, 2022October 13, 2023 by Jake Fishman

Radiology took a giant step towards actually #ditchingthedisk last week with Intelerad’s acquisition of image exchange rival, Life Image. Here’s why this could be a big deal…

Exchange Leadership – Acquiring Life Image makes Intelerad the “clear medical image exchange market leader,” combining two of the top three exchange companies (the other is Nuance), and creating a far more straightforward roadmap towards building a “true nation-wide, electronic image exchange network.”

Demand & Supply – Although imaging vendors always position their acquisitions as patient or clinician-centric (even if it’s debatable), this move actually does address one of radiology’s most glaring problems — it’s far too difficult for providers to share images with each other if they don’t use the same exchange platform.

The Exchange Network Effect – Because the clinical value of image exchanges multiplies as vendor market share increases, Intelerad now has a network effect advantage that you almost never see in medical imaging. If this deal increased Intelerad’s image exchange share to 70% (hypothetically), it would make Intelerad far more valuable to its current clients and far more attractive to its remaining prospects.

Defining “Open” – The announcement alluded to the creation of an “open” image exchange, which is consistent with Ambra/Intelerad’s philosophy. However, it’s unclear how or when that will happen – or whether Nuance and other competitors will decide to join.

Intelerad = Acquirer – This deal also solidifies Intelerad’s title as imaging informatics’ most active acquirer, buying at least seven companies in the last two years that expanded it into new clinical areas (cardiac, OB/GYN), regions (UK), technologies (cloud), and functionalities (image sharing, reporting, cloud VNA).

The Takeaway

Intelerad’s combined Ambra and Life Image acquisitions should make it the undisputed leader of the image exchange segment. That’s a big deal considering that the value of image exchange software multiplies as market share increases, and because it could actually allow Intelerad to solve (not just improve) one of radiology’s most frustrating challenges.

Intelerad’s Reporting Play

Posted on August 17, 2022October 13, 2023 by Jake Fishman

Intelerad continued its M&A streak, acquiring radiology reporting company, PenRad Technologies, in a relatively small deal that might have a much bigger impact than some think.

PenRad has a solid share of the breast and lung cancer screening reporting segments, making it a target of a number of PACS vendors in recent years.

The acquisition is another example of Intelerad using its private equity backing to complete its informatics portfolio, following a series of deals that allowed its expansions into new clinical areas (cardiac, OB/GYN), regions (UK), technologies (cloud), and functionalities (image sharing, cloud VNA).

Adding PenRad will immediately give Intelerad three proven cancer screening reporting solutions to offer to its PACS customers, while bringing Intelerad into an untold number of PenRad accounts that it didn’t work with before now.

The deal’s long-term impact will likely be dictated by how well Intelerad integrates and enhances its new PenRad technologies. If Intelerad is able to seamlessly integrate its PACS/worklist with PenRad’s dictation/reporting, it could create a truly unique advantage — especially if Intelerad expands its reporting capabilities beyond just cancer screening.

Intelerad’s PenRad acquisition and Sirona’s unified radiology platform also highlight the differentiating role that integrated reporting might play in future enterprise imaging portfolios, although there aren’t many more reporting companies still available for acquisition.

The Takeaway

Informatics veterans might point out that it’s much easier to acquire a portfolio of companies than it is to integrate all that software — and they’d be correct. That said, most would also agree that Intelerad has assembled a uniquely comprehensive enterprise imaging portfolio and it would be extremely well-positioned if/when that portfolio becomes fully integrated.

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