- Rockford, Tennessee project includes 40,000 square feet (3,700 square meters) of new construction
- Supports growing customer demand for PET/CT
- More than 90 new jobs to be created over five years
Siemens Healthineers Molecular Imaging has completed a $43.6 million construction and renovation project at its PET (positron emission tomography) Detector Center in Rockford, Tennessee, United States. The project added 40,000 square feet to the 97,000-square-foot campus and renovated an existing 7,500 square feet of space. The Rockford campus is the sole manufacturing site worldwide of the PET detectors that are the cornerstone of Siemens Healthineers PET/computed tomography (PET/CT) scanners.
The building project will enable Siemens Healthineers Molecular Imaging to expand production capacity for its PET detector technology to accommodate increasing customer demand. This growing demand is being driven by the expanding clinical use of radiopharmaceuticals in theranostic approaches to cancer care, in neurology applications such as Alzheimer’s disease evaluation, and in cardiac imaging. The boost in PET detector production will also support the launch of new PET/CT product lines in the U.S. and internationally. PET detectors capture gamma rays that are emitted when a patient is injected with a radiopharmaceutical. PET/CT scanners translate these captured gamma-ray signals into images that help clinicians measure metabolic activity and visualize various forms of disease, including cardiac disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and many forms of cancer.
Rockford’s PET Detector Center consists of two buildings on Dunavant Drive and one facility on Stock Creek Boulevard. The construction and renovation project centered on the Dunavant Drive section of the campus and includes: an additional 36,000 square feet of dedicated manufacturing space; renovation of a 7,500-square-foot section of the 26,000-square-foot PET detector manufacturing and engineering facility to increase production capacity; and a 4,000 square-foot expansion of the 21,000-square-foot research and development (R&D) facility. The 50,000-square-foot crystal-manufacturing facility on Stock Creek Boulevard was not part of the project.
The new construction and renovations are expected to bring over 90 new manufacturing, R&D, and management positions to the Rockford area over five years. Currently, more than 200 people are employed on the Rockford campus.
Siemens Healthineers received a $930,000 FastTrack Economic Development Grant from the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development for the project. The state grant can be used to help offset expenses that include property acquisition, new construction, and building retrofitting.
“This ambitious expansion and renovation of our Rockford PET Detector Center demonstrates our ongoing commitment to being global leaders in PET/CT technology,” said James Williams, PhD, head of Siemens Healthineers Molecular Imaging. “This building project significantly increases production capacity and customer access to our PET/CT scanners to meet the rapidly growing worldwide clinical demand for PET/CT imaging. We are grateful to the state of Tennessee for the FastTrack Economic Development Grant that has supported this project, which will bring new jobs to the greater Rockford area.”
Sustainability is a key component of the project. Eco-friendly initiatives include the installation of carbon-neutral equipment powered by electricity rather than gas, interior LED lighting, and 12 charging stations for electric automobiles. Siemens Healthineers worked closely with the Tennessee Valley Authority, the largest public power provider in the United States, to ensure the energy efficiency of the campus.
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