GE Healthcare, a division of General Electric Co. and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which together operate Omnyx, announced their plan to open 25 cancer centers in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East over the next 10 years. The first nations identified are Germany, Greece, South Korea and Turkey.

“We're taking the highest level of technology, which would be GE, and placing it in parts of a region that would normally not access that care and bring it closer to home for patients,” said Charles Bogosta, president of the international and commercial services division of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The new facilities will include medical and surgical oncology, radiation, and acillary radiology and laboratory services.

GE Healthcare will provide medical equipment, such as CT scanners and ultrasound machines, while the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center will run the centers. The university already manages two cancer centers in Ireland using GE equipment and one of the largest cancer programs in the U.S, serving 30,000 patients annually in more than 40 centers in western Pennsylvania. U.P.M.C., the largest employer in western Pennsylvania, generates $7 billion in annual revenue.

Each care center potentially could bring in between $2 million and $5 million in revenue and a total of $25 million for a major cancer center. The companies say they will focus on developed and developing nations.

In June, 2008, the two companies collaborated to create Omnyx LLC, a business to develop and market technology allowing doctors to store and display on computers digital images of human tissue from microscope slides.