A Medical Device Daily

DiscoveryBioMed (Birmingham, Alabama) reported that it has partnered with ArtusLabs (Durham, North Carolina) to identify best practices for managing significant amounts of image and numerical data. ArtusLabs' flagship product, Ensemble for Life Science, will be the platform for managing DiscoveryBioMed's scientific data.

The goal of this partnership will be to best practices in gathering, mining and processing, and tabulating large volumes of numerical data from light-based bioassays.

DiscoveryBioMed is a life sciences and biotechnology company that engages in R&D and services work in cell engineering and production and drug discovery. The company is located in Innovation Depot in Birmingham.

Using physiologically relevant cell culture models preferably derived from normal and diseased adult human cells and tissues, it focuses on finding therapeutic compounds for a variety of human diseases. It also applies this custom human cell-based approach to its "fee-for-service" support to researchers in allied areas and currently serves clients both locally in Alabama as well as in eight other states.

Sentinelle Medical (Toronto), a maker of breast MRI coils and software and Siemens Healthcare (Malvern, Pennsylvania) reported an OEM distribution agreement for Sentinelle's Vanguard coils.

Under this agreement, Siemens will sell the Sentinelle Vanguard for Siemens coil for the MRI family members Magnetom Espree, Magnetom Avanto and Magnetom Symphony, a Tim System. The Sentinelle Vanguard for Siemens is also integrated into the new Magnetom Espree-Pink, a dedicated system devoted to excellence in MR breast care.

The agreement also anticipates future development collaborations.

Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women. In 2008, 182,460 new cases were diagnosed and 40,480 women died of breast cancer in the U.S. The National Cancer Institute estimates that a woman has a 1-in-8 chance of developing breast cancer during her lifetime.

The American Cancer Society's (Atlanta) new screening guidelines will impact up to 1 million high-risk women by recommending they receive additional annual MRI screenings. A high percentage of these women will benefit from breast MRI.

The Sentinelle Vanguard for Siemens enables excellent quality MR images of the breast and provides complete and open access for intervention with an award winning design that optimizes patient comfort and workflow. The coil is designed with Variable Coil Geometry, which allows the coil to accommodate a wide range of patient sizes, and increases signal-to-noise ratio delivering excellent image quality.

In other agreements/contracts news:

• Impac Software (Sunnyvale, California), part of the Elekta Group (Stockholm, Sweden), reported its collaboration with the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN; Fort Washington, Pennsylvania) to license NCCN's clinical-care content to clinicians utilizing Mosaiq, Impac's oncology electronic medical record (EMR).

Mosaiq will be the first oncology EMR to embed an intelligent search engine that dynamically links to the NCCN clinical practice guidelines in oncology. The NCCN guidelines are used by clinicians to shape care recommendations covering 97% of all patients with cancer and are updated on a continual basis.

The NCCN guidelines, developed through an explicit review of evidence and recommendations from medical experts, address cancer detection, prevention and risk reduction, workup and diagnosis and treatment and supportive care.

In addition, Mosaiq will provide active access to the NCCN Drugs & Biologics Compendium, which delineates uses of drugs and biologics in the care of patients with cancer, listing FDA-approved disease indications as well as off-label recommendations for use, and to the NCCN Chemotherapy Order Templates.

• Snap-On Smile (New York) reported a partnership with Henry Schein, (Melville, New York) the largest provider of healthcare products and services to office-based practitioners in the combined North American and European markets, for the distribution of the Snap-On Smile dental restorative appliance, an exciting new non-invasive, low-cost treatment for patients.

In addition to the exclusive distribution of the appliance, Henry Schein will exclusively distribute the Snap-On Smile Practice Development Kit. This collection of educational resources, patient marketing materials and adjustment and finishing tools will make it easy for dentists to quickly begin offering Snap-On Smile to their patients.

• Stratus Technologies (Maynard, Massachusetts) reported that Allen Technologies, (Scottsdale, Arizona) the leading provider of interactive patient communication systems, has adopted the high-availability capabilities of Stratus Avance software as a technology foundation for its flagship Vigo product line.

Allen Technologies' Vigo System serves the needs of three distinct clients: patients, healthcare providers and hospital IT staff. For patients, the Vigo system enables health care facilities to deliver basics, such as television, Internet, music, movies, VoIP and patient education. For caregivers, the Vigo System provides bedside access to a hospital's advanced clinical applications, such as medication management, X-rays and dietary systems. For hospital IT staff, the Vigo system provides high availability at various levels throughout its architecture, thereby minimizing service and maintenance issues.