A Medical Device Daily

Small Bone Innovations (SBI; New York) reported that it has consolidated five separate agreements into a single new agreement on worldwide license, supply and distribution of Artelon products with Artimplant (Vastra Frolunda, Sweden).

The new agreement addresses the five existing technologies and two applications in development of the Artelon spacer portfolio designed to treat arthritis within small bone and joints. SBI will no longer own exclusive rights to market and sell spacer products already cleared by the FDA and certain other products not yet introduced in the U.S. market.

SBI began marketing Artelon products in 2005.

In return, Artimplant has agreed to fund and provide increased clinical documentation on the performance of Artelon spacers, including patient studies. Artimplant will also receive a higher share of margins attributable to SBI sales of Artelon spacers.

Since 2005, about 10,000 implants have been performed, principally in the U.S., with a better than 98% success rate and less than 1% documented explants.

The new agreement consolidating the five separate agreements is retroactive to January 1, 2009. The affected products include: Artelon CMC-I Spacer, Artelon CMC Spacer Arthro, and Artelon STT Spacer, marketed worldwide and the Artelon DRU Spacer and Artelon MTP Spacer marketed outside the U.S.

An agreement reached in December 2007 between the two companies giving SBI exclusive rights to as-yet-undeveloped Artelon products for treating arthritis in the hands and wrist domain is unaffected by the new agreement.

In other agreements/contracts news:

• Span-America Medical Systems (Greenville, South Carolina) said that Hill-Rom Holdings (Batesville, Indiana) notified the company that it will cancel its non-exclusive supply contract with Span-America effective April 6. The current contract provides for Span-America to sell certain lines of private-label support surfaces to Hill-Rom on a non-exclusive basis.

Medical recruiting and staffing company Medical Connections Holdings (Boca Raton, Florida) reported that it has finalized an agreement with Tribridge (Tampa, Florida) to provide current and future software needs. Medical Connections enlisted the services of Tribridge in developing a proprietary enterprise-wide ERP software system to meet its current and future business strategies and growth objectives. This system will enable internal personnel and management to increase productivity and streamline day-to-day processes.

• Bizmatics (San Jose, California), a developer of electronic medical records (EMR), said that it has partnered with PhyLogic Healthcare (Springfield, Massachusetts), a national billing service and revenue cycle management company. The partnership has been consummated with a list of mutual medical practice clients that the companies said is growing at an exponential rate due in part to the U.S. government's push for EMRs. The partnership offers medical practices EMR solutions which are seamlessly integrated with outsourced billing and accounts receivable management functions.