• ACCEPTx (Las Vegas) reported that it opened a new national headquarters in Las Vegas and expanded sales of its case acceptance software nationwide. The software creates fee presentations, completed contracts and other exam-critical documents in real time, all generated from the information in the orthodontist's practice management software. The software shortens exam time for the orthodontic staff as well as for parents and allows each orthodontic office to define and integrate the metrics that are unique to every practice such as insurance discounts, estimated insurance payments, length of treatment, case difficulty, prepay discounts, adjunctive treatments, and credit management. ACCEPTx is an orthodontic treatment acceptance software company.

• Affymetrix (Santa Clara, California) reported full commercial launch of its SNP Array 5.0, its single array for genetic studies. It said researchers are using the array to better identify and understand complex diseases such as autism, autoimmunity, bipolar disease, cancer, diabetes and heart disease. The array features 500,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms from the original two-chip 500K array Set, as well as more than 420,000 additional probes designed to measure other genetic differences, such as copy number variation. The SNP array 5.0 offers more than twice the genetic information per array and improves array-processing time by more than 25%, according to the company. Affymetrix says its photolithographic manufacturing process provides information capacity on an array, enabling researchers to use a whole-genome approach to analyzing the relationship between genetics and health.

• Aphios (Woburn, Massachusetts) reported receiving U.S. patent No. 7,147,806 B2 for "Polymer Microspheres/Nanospheres and Encapsulating Therapeutic Proteins Therein." The patent covers methods for manufacturing biodegradable polymer microspheres and nanospheres utilizing non-toxic supercritical or near-critical fluids with/without polar cosolvents. Biologically adherent polymeric microsphere carriers have been shown to be effective in the oral delivery of proteins such as insulin. These microspheres are comprised of hydrophobic copolymers, in contrast to conventional microspheres that are hydrophilic in nature. The hydrophobic microspheres appear to have a significantly longer residence time in the gastrointestinal tract as compared to conventional microspheres. Aphios produces enabling technology and therapeutic products for the prevention and treatment of certain cancers, infectious diseases and CNS disorders.

• Medtronic Spine (Memphis, Tennessee) reported the availability of the direct lateral access instrument set, which may be used in lumbar direct lateral interbody fusion procedures. The instrument set, when used with the direct lateral approach, is designed to help surgeons prepare a vertebral disc space for fusion procedures in the lower spine. A direct lateral approach is used when surgery is performed on the lumbar spine by going through the trans-psoas muscles located on the side of the abdomen above a patient's hip. Medtronic's spinal business specializes in advancing the treatment of spinal conditions.