A Medical Device Daily

Cynosure (Westford, Massachusetts), a developer and manufacturer of a broad array of light-based aesthetic treatment systems, said that it has signed a multi-year, funded cooperative agreement with Unilever (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey) to develop and commercialize light-based devices targeting the home use personal care market. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

"One of our long-term corporate objectives has been to enter the emerging home use market, and Unilever represents an ideal partner for us," said president/CEO Michael Davin. "We view this agreement as a first step in forming a meaningful long-term strategic relationship with Unilever and an attractive business opportunity for Cynosure. With its global footprint, Unilever has the scale to successfully launch and distribute light-based products into the consumer market."

"Together with Unilever, we intend to target multiple benefit areas within the home use segment," Davin said. "The initial focus of this funded development agreement will be on the skin rejuvenation component of the marketplace, which includes wrinkles, lines and texture. We hope our current light-based technology for skin rejuvenation will translate well into the over-the-counter device market."

Genevieve Berger, Unilever's chief research and development officer, said, "We believe the emerging consumer market for light-based devices is a promising long-term opportunity for Unilever. We selected Cynosure as our development partner because of the company's ability to develop and bring leading-edge technology into the marketplace and its demonstrated success as an innovator in the physician based aesthetic market. Cynosure has proven that it can develop products that not only deliver outstanding clinical results but also emphasize safety, which is a critical element for the consumer marketplace. We look forward to working with the Cynosure team in the years ahead."

In other agreements and contracts news:

• Men and women in the Dominican Republic will soon have access to genetic tests for predicting the risk of male or female hair loss due to a distribution agreement reported by pharmacogenomics research and development firm PharmaGenoma (Irvine, California) and its subsidiary HairDX (also Irvine).

The genetic baldness tests will be introduced to the Dominican Republic by Skin and Hair Transplant Institute (Santo Domingo).

• Saladax Biomedical (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania), a developer of the Personalized Chemotherapy Management line of tests to measure blood levels of cancer drugs, has signed an agreement with the Karolinska University Hospital (Stockholm, Sweden).

Karolinska will provide clinical laboratory testing for the Saladax 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) Assay based at their specialty clinical laboratory facility. In collaboration with Karolinska, Saladax can now offer 5-FU testing and 5-FU dose management to hospitals and oncologists throughout Europe that want to offer their patients the benefits of 5-FU dose management without setting up their own laboratory testing.

• Hospira (Lake Forest, Illinois), a pharmaceutical and medication delivery company, has reported agreements with MedAssets (Alpharetta, Georgia) on intravenous (IV) solutions and gravity IV equipment, and a renewal of its agreement for infusion devices. The five-year MedAssets agreements are effective as of June 1 for IV solutions and equipment, and July 1 for infusion devices. These new agreements represent a first for Hospira from a contract award position on IV solutions and gravity IV equipment.