A Medical Device Daily

Elmarco (Liberec, Czech Republic), a producer of machinery focused on industrial scale nanofiber production, and HemCon Medical Technologies (Portland, Oregon) reported a partnership to develop and commercialize products manufactured using the Elmarco Nanospider platform for the wound care market.

Through this collaboration, HemCon will be the sole channel through which the Elmarco Nanospider manufacturing platform will be utilized for the global wound care market, valued at an estimated $5.5 billion, according to the companies.

HemCon will provide product development scale up and design transfer expertise and Elmarco will offer its platform, Nanospider for manufacturing and the transfer of technology within the field of wound care.

According to Elmarco, Nanospider machines offer production level manufacturing of high quality fibers, unlike current electro-spinning processes, which create single nano-sized fibers at a time. The Nanospider manufacturing technology provides increased productivity and efficiencies while reducing raw material requirements, production time and labor costs, the company noted. The use of nanofiber materials for wound care enables the creation of complex layered dressings that can include multiple therapeutic benefits in a single product. In addition, nanofiber materials offer more surface exposure of active ingredients, providing the opportunity to enhance and increase efficacy of new or existing products.

"Elmarco is pleased to have chosen HemCon as its exclusive development channel for the wound care market. In working with HemCon, we gain a significant business partner with whom we have a three year history in the wound care field," said Ladislav Mare, the managing director of Elmarco. "Our company has successfully developed products with a range of global partners like HemCon, and we have built a global, multi-dimensional network of products on our nanofiber technology platform."

"HemCon is pleased to partner with Elmarco to bring true innovation to the wound care market. With Elmarco's revolutionary Nanospider manufacturing, we will be able to work with our global partners to develop solutions that drastically improve the process of production, as well as the level of care we can offer patients," said HemCon President/CEO John Morgan.

HemCon develops advanced medical products, including the chitosan-based HemCon dressing used by military and civilian first responders.

In other agreements/contracts news:

• SeqWright (Houston) reported a collaboration with Roche Applied Science (Basel, Switzerland) and the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. The research focuses on a major study to help identify possible genetic variants associated with dilated cardiomyopathy, a disease of heart muscle.

In this collaboration SeqWright used NimbleGen Sequence Capture Human Exome Arrays to enrich over 180,000 exons from DNA samples from individuals affected with dilated cardiomyopathy. Using the Genome Sequencer FLX, a technology of 454 Life Sciences, SeqWright is sequencing the enriched exons to detect genetic variants within these samples, including single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and insertions and deletions.

The complete solution from Roche allows targeted re-sequencing of all of the coding exons, called the human exome, representing the portion of the human genome that is transcribed and translated into the myriad of proteins that function within all cells in the human body.

• OptumHealth (Golden Valley, Minnesota) said it is collaborating with American Well (Boston) to offer the first nationwide service allowing individuals immediate access to physicians and clinicians via two-way video, secure chat, the phone or a corporation's healthcare portal.

OptumHealth says it helps individuals navigate the healthcare system, finance their health care needs and achieve their health and well-being goals. American Well says it has created a new healthcare marketplace where consumers and physicians can come together online to acquire and provide convenient and immediate health care services.

• RemitDATA (Memphis, Tennessee), a provider of web-based productivity tools and benchmarking to the outpatient healthcare market, reported a multi-year agreement with VHA (Irving, Texas), the national healthcare alliance, to optimize reimbursement and operational efficiencies for its 23,000-plus non-acute care members nationwide.

Using RemitDATA's tools, Reiembursement PRO and WebScan PRO, VHA's non-acute members can improve and simplify their reimbursement and business operations by reducing denials, accelerating cash flow and enhancing work flow processes, the company said. In addition, the aggregated payer data collected via Reimbursement PRO will provide VHA members with real-time payer benchmarks to make the most informed decisions to enhance their practice's profitability.

• Medsphere Systems (Carlsbad, California), a provider of healthcare IT solutions, reported that the new 11-bed Blue Mountain Hospital (Blanding, Utah), will implement its OpenVista electronic health records solution. As a rural and primary care facility, Blue Mountain Hospital plans to fully deploy OpenVista in only three months, the company noted.