A Medical Device Daily

ConvaTec (Skillman, New Jersey) has signed a co-promotion agreement with HemCon Medical Technologies (Portland, Oregon) to market ConvaTec advanced wound and critical care products to the U.S. Armed Forces.

Through the agreement, HemCon is granted sales and marketing rights to ConvaTec's Aquacel and Aquacel Ag dressings for managing acute and chronic wounds and its Flexi-Seal Fecal Management System (FMS) for the management of fecal incontinence.

Aquacel and Aquacel Ag dressings incorporate hydrofiber technology. The dressings gel provides a moist wound healing environment, manages exudate, protects the periwound skin and reduces pain in situ and on removal. In addition, Aquacel Ag dressing provides the broad-spectrum antimicrobial properties of ionic silver, which kills a broad range of pathogens in the dressing, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) as demonstrated in vitro.

The Flexi-Seal FMS, a temporary containment device for patients with acute fecal incontinence, was designed to safely and effectively divert fecal matter, protect patients' wounds from fecal contamination, and reduce the risk of both skin breakdown and spread of infection, such as Clostridium difficile.

In other agreements and contracts news:

• Micromem Technologies (Toronto), through its wholly owned subsidiary Micromem Applied Sensor Technologies, has secured a manufacturing supply agreement to supply to Unotron (Dallas), over a five-year period, approximately five million keyboard circuits that incorporate Micromem's patented magnetic sensor technology. Unotron is the inventor of washable keyboard technology and intends to integrate and deploy Micromem's Hall sensor technology into Unotron's new line of SoftKey washable keyboards and upcoming production projects. This agreement is anticipated to result in about $77 million in revenue to Micromem.

• Orthofix International (Boston) reported that it has signed an agreement with the MBA Group (Braintree, Massachusetts) to expand the distribution of the company's spine implant and biologic devices in the U.K. After having been Orthofix's exclusive distributor of orthopedic devices in Spain and Portugal for more than 20 years, MBA expanded their relationship with Orthofix in 2008 becoming the company's exclusive distributor of spine implant products in Spain and Portugal. The new five-year agreement with MBA is effective as of May 1.

• Baxter International (Deerfield, Illinois) said that it signed an exclusive three-year distribution agreement in the U.S. and international markets with Sigma International General Medical Apparatus (Medina, New York) for infusion pumps. The agreement enables Baxter to immediately provide Spectrum large volume infusion pumps to customers and grants Baxter access to SIGMA's product development pipeline, which will complement Baxter's current infusion systems portfolio and next generation technologies.

• Sevocity, a division of Conceptual MindWorks (San Antonio) reported that Gateway to Care, a collaborative comprised of more than 165 public and private safety net health systems, coalitions, advocacy groups and social service providers in the Houston, Texas area, has chosen Sevocity EHR as the System's only funded electronic health record solution. Under the terms of the agreement, five of Gateway to Care's health centers will implement Sevocity EHR by August. Other centers are scheduled to implement Sevocity EHR later this year and in early 2010.