• AccuVein(Cold Spring Harbor, New York) reported a five-year agreement with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). This agreement brings the AccuVein AV300, a hand-held, non-contact vein illumination device, to GSA organizations including military and veteran hospitals. The AV300 weighs 10 ounces, and uses point-and-click technology the healthcare professional presses a button and positions the device above the patient's skin to display a map on the skin of underlying veins. With a range of hands-free options, the AV300 can quickly switch between a hand-held and hands-free mode, freeing the practitioner's hands to perform the venipuncture. The AV300 can help reduce the need for multiple needle sticks, with the goal of improving patient care and the time to access veins.

• BioImagene (Sunnyvale, California) said that the company is advancing its goal of bridging personalized medicine and the clinical practice of pathology by providing Companion Algorithms. These specialized algorithms, which BioImagene develops for use with its Virtuoso suite of web-based software, aid pathologists in the quantitative assessment of specialized diagnostic tests used to determine patient suitability for specific cancer therapies. BioImagene's Companion Algorithms can be used by pathologists to aid in the interpretation of digitized images of cancer diagnostic tests including immunohistochemistry (IHC) and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH). Digitized images can be generated by one of BioImagene's iScan slide scanning systems.

• Invitrogen (Carlsbad, California) reported the availability of an automated, research-use microarray system designed to simplify immunogenetic testing, including human leukocyte antigen (HLA) research. The Prodigy system is an advanced DNA and protein analysis tool that simplifies and accelerates histocompatibility research, vaccine and drug development, and disease association studies. The company claims that the Prodigy is the first high-throughput, next-generation, sequence-specific oligonucleotide probe system that streamlines sample workflow for hybridizing, detecting and analyzing HLA markers in large-volume variation analysis and genotyping research studies.

• Medicsight (London) has reported the launch of its online product, MedicRead 3.0 Colon. MedicRead 3.0 Colon is Medicsight's visualization platform that includes the company's ColonCAD software. MedicRead 3.0 Colon allows radiologists to read computed tomography scans for the detection of colonic polyps, which may be the precursors of colon cancer.

• Physio-Control (Redmond, Washington) said that the Lucas 2 chest compression system, has been granted FDA clearance. Lucas 2 builds upon the Lucas 1 technology, but differs from its predecessor in that it is an electric rather than a pneumatic device. Lucas 2 can be powered either by battery alone or using a wall or car electricity outlet. The battery is the latest in rechargeable, Lithium Ion Polymer technology and operates for up to 45 minutes (typical) on a single battery. Lucas 2 is equipped with Smart Restart functionality. When a battery needs to be replaced, Lucas 2 does not have to be powered down, only put into the pause mode, and when the new battery is inserted, the start position will stay the same within 60 seconds from the pause. Operation can be quickly resumed, saving time for medical personnel. Lucas 2 offers other new features such as alerts and pauses to aid ventilation during compressions with an unsecured airway (e.g. bag-valve-mask) and quieter operation.