A Medical Device Daily

SNM (Reston, Virginia), which bills itself as the "world's largest society for medical professionals in the molecular imaging and nuclear medicine profession," said it has received nearly $3.3 million in donations for its "Bench to Bedside" campaign.

It said it has added recent pledges from IBA Molecular (Sterling, Virginia), MDS Nordion (Ottawa) and Cardinal Health (Dublin, Ohio) totaling more than $1 million, to previous commitments from industry donors, including GE Healthcare (Waukesha, Wisconsin), Bristol-Myers Squibb Medical Imaging (North Billerica, Massachusetts), Siemens Medical Solutions USA (Malvern, Pennsylvania), Philips (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) and FluoroPharma (Boston).

"The 'Bench to Bedside' campaign is a five-year effort to raise $5 million to power SNM's important initiative: uniting the imaging community in the effort to translate new molecular imaging research into health care innovations that can be used in patient care," said SNM president Martin Sandler. "Molecular imaging — seeing biological targets or pathways in the body to understand how individual molecules are working — is at the forefront of personalized medicine, which eventually will allow us to tailor the treatment of a disease to each individual patient."

The campaign is being carried out in partnership with SNM's education and research foundation. The campaign was launched last summer with $1 million from lead donor GE Healthcare, SNM said.

Through collaboration with members of SNM's Molecular Imaging Center of Excellence, the society has drafted a separate, five-year action plan to move molecular imaging research from bench to bedside.

SNM said "Bench to Bedside" funds will be used to support translational research; facilitate clinical research and clinical trials; support outreach activities to referring physicians, patient groups, regulators and funders; increase advocacy for molecular imaging; and train the current imaging workforce and educate future generations of practitioners on the applications of molecular imaging.

"To underscore the importance of this campaign and the society's mission to improve health care by advancing molecular imaging and therapy, SNM has named Marybeth Howlett as the director of our Molecular Imaging Center of Excellence," said Virginia Pappas, CEO. Howlett, the founding executive director of the Public Health Policy Advisory Board — an independent, nonpartisan organization in Washington, created by former Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan — will implement the center's strategic initiatives, Pappas said.

SNM is an international science and professional organization.