A Medical Device Daily

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has partnered with Abbott (Abbott Park, Illinois) to launch a non-profit viral diagnostics center near the UCSF Mission Bay campus to help identify unknown viruses from around the world.

The UCSF Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center aims to expedite virus discovery in acute and chronic human illnesses, including outbreaks and rare and unusual diseases.

Among the center's initial projects is genetic sequencing of strains of the H1N1 influenza virus that emerged in Mexico this spring. The lab is collaborating with international researchers to compare strains found in patients in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada, in an effort to identify how stable the virus is and how it is changing as it spreads.

The center also is actively engaged in efforts to characterize rare and unusual strains of HIV from Cameroon, Africa, according to Charles Chiu, MD, PhD, an assistant professor at UCSF and director of the new center.

"We have seen tremendous demand from around the world for help in identifying the cause of infectious diseases, in both humans and animals," said Chiu, who also is affiliated with the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, or QB3. "This center starts to address this need."

The center's technology is based on the ViroChip, a high-throughput screening technology that uses a DNA microarray to test viral samples. The ViroChip was developed by UCSF professors Joe DeRisi, PhD, and Donald Ganem, MD, and was first used in the 2003 identification of the virus causing Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

Since then, the DeRisi Laboratory has fielded numerous requests to help identify mysterious illnesses that have stumped public health agencies, physicians and veterinarians alike, Chiu said.

While two similar viral diagnostics centers exist in New York and Singapore – the latter also set up in collaboration with DeRisi – this center is unique in offering both viral discovery as well as serving as a diagnostic resource for clinical researchers and physicians

The center also will help Abbott in its efforts to develop innovative diagnostic technologies and tests to detect new infectious agents as they arise, especially for application in screening blood supplies.

In other agreements/contracts news:

• Nuvo Research (Mississauga, Ontario) reported that it has entered into a license and development agreement with Mallinckrodt (Hazelwood, Missouri), a subsidiary of Covidien (Mansfield, Massachusetts).

Penn said and Pennsaid Plus are Nuvo's topical non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug candidates. Nuvo has been advised by the FDA that it expects to respond to Nuvo's resubmitted new drug application for Pennsaid by Aug. 5.

Nuvo will receive an up-front, non-refundable payment of $10 million. In addition, Nuvo is eligible to receive a $15 million milestone payment on Pennsaid's approval by the FDA, which will increase to $20 million if certain labeling criteria are agreed to by the FDA. Nuvo will receive royalties on net U.S. sales of Pennsaid and Pennsaid Plus at rates that are consistent with industry standards for products at similar stages of development. Nuvo will be eligible to receive additional escalating sales milestone payments for the products totaling up to $100 million.

Covidien will assume responsibility for all future development activities and expenses for Pennsaid Plus, including two Phase III clinical trials that Covidien expects to commence in 2010. Covidien has a right to negotiate with Nuvo on an exclusive basis for a period of 90 days to expand the licensed territory to include additional unlicensed countries worldwide. Nuvo will manufacture and supply Pennsaid and Pennsaid Plus to Covidien from its existing manufacturing facility in Varennes, Quebec.

• CLT (Israel) reported the establishment of Closed Loop Therapies (CLT) – a joint venture between Erasmus University Medical Centre (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) and CLT Israel. The joint venture aims to develop and commercialize a novel therapeutic system, consisting of an arrhythmia-detecting drug pump combined with a unique drug, for automatic and immediate treatment of emerging atrial fibrillation (AF).

The system is based on a breakthrough discovery by two of the founders of CLT, Eli Ovsyshcher and Ilya Fleidervish. This discovery led to a highly effective method for pharmacological conversion of AF, employing brief bolus injections of rapidly hydrolysable cholinergic agonists into the bloodstream.

• Vital Data Technology (Newport Beach, California) has signed an agreement with Health Plan of Michigan, one of the state's larger Medicaid health plans serving approximately 175,000 residents in the state of Michigan. Health Plan of Michigan will use Vital Data's MyVitalData PlanLink, a comprehensive service with specifically designed tools and applications designed to securely provide patient-specific real time and historic healthcare data at the point of emergency care.

• DocuSys (Atlanta), reported it has signed an agreement with Southeast Alabama Medical Center (SAMC; Dothan, Alabama), a 370-bed regional referral center, to transition maintenance from their current vendor and to upgrade to the latest version of the DocuSys Anesthesia and Drug Management Suite. SAMC has also purchased DocuSys' Presurgical Care Management System, software that assesses patient risk and ensures patient readiness for surgery by tracking that all presurgical testing has been completed and reviewed prior to the day of surgery.

• Premier Purchasing Partners (San Diego) reported that new agreements for reimbursement software have been awarded to 3M Health Information Systems (Murray, Utah) and Meta Health Technology (New York).

Premier also said new agreements for disposable anesthesia products have been awarded to Medline Industries (Mundelein, Illinois), Smiths Medical, ASD (Rockland, Massachusetts) and Vital Signs (Totowa, New Jersey).

Effective Aug. 1, the agreements are available to acute-care and continuum-of-care members of the Premier healthcare alliance.

• Excell Home Care & Hospice (Minneapolis) has entered into a business relationship with Cardiocom (Chanhassen, Minnesota) to provide home telehealth technology to patients with chronic illness. Cardiocom's telehealth system provides an interactive opportunity to proactively manage patient care. Every day, Excell Home Care patients use the system to communicate with an Excell Home Care nurse.

The Commander Home Telehealth System guides the patient through an interactive health check that includes the collection of symptoms, care plan compliance, and vital signs such as weight, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, heart rate and blood glucose readings. This information is immediately transmitted via a standard telephone line or cellular connection to the patient's clinician for review.

• Phase Forward (Waltham, Massachusetts) has inked an agreement with INC Research (Raleigh, North Carolina), a contract research organization (CRO), to extend the benefits of its InForm Integrated Trial Management (ITM) solution to INC Research's customers.

• Royal Philips (Andover, Massachusetts) has signed an eight-year iSite PACS replacement deal with University of Utah Health Care (Salt Lake City), the Intermountain West's only academic healthcare system. The web-based iSite system is helping University Health Care meet its growing image storage needs and allow access to images across their enterprises.

Instead of upgrading its existing PACS systems, University Health Care replaced its system with iSite PACS to leverage iSite Enterprise filmless distribution and advanced visualization capabilities. University Health Care went live with the Philips system in January and is reporting a positive experience with the iSite PACS solution, highlighting its ability to provide a seamless interface with other technologies.