A Medical Device Daily

Georgetown University Medical Center (Washington) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL; Oak Ridge, Tennessee) have reported an agreement between the institutions that formalizes their research relationship and will help facilitate additional biomedical research – particularly in the areas of structural biology, systems genetics, biomarkers, computational biology, and radiation biology.

The Comprehensive Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) signed by the two organizations is designed to make collaboration easier among researchers at the two organizations and is valid for five years.

"We are extremely pleased to be strengthening our collaborative research relationship with Oak Ridge National Laboratories," said Howard Federoff, MD, PhD, executive vice president for health sciences and executive dean of the school of medicine at Georgetown University. "ORNL brings to the table supercomputing capabilities that will allow us to analyze, manage, and visualize complex molecular data that is collected at Georgetown. This collaboration brings us one step closer to being able to employ a systems-level approach to health and medicine and improve human health."

In other agreements/contracts news:

• Welch Allyn (Skaneateles Falls, New York) and Zoll Medical (Chelmsford, Massachusetts) reported a comprehensive strategic alliance regarding research and development, manufacturing, sales, service, and distribution relating to Welch Allyn's defibrillation and monitoring products. The two companies have agreed to work together across multiple areas to capitalize on complementary strengths in each company's operations and products.

Welch Allyn will continue to focus on sales of the Welch Allyn AED 10, a simple AED provided to alternate-care markets, where the company is the leader in sales of equipment and products for physician office practices. It is anticipated that Zoll will become the manufacturer and exclusive supplier of these defibrillator products to Welch Allyn.

Welch Allyn and ZOLL will also be jointly pursuing business opportunities in the military portion of the monitoring and resuscitation markets. In the future, Zoll will provide customer support and technical service and supply aftermarket accessories to Welch Allyn defibrillator customers.

• CPC of America (Sarasota, Florida) said it has entered into a manufacturing agreement with BC Tech (Santa Cruz, California). BC Tech will manufacture the MedClose vascular closure system (VCS), a Class II extravascular puncture-closure device that may be used with a biological sealant for worldwide commercial application in diagnostic and interventional cardiovascular procedures.

Under the terms of the agreement, BC Tech will be responsible for manufacturing the MedClose system for use in commercial applications to seal the femoral artery access site following cardiac and peripheral vascular catheterization procedures when approved.

BC Tech also will build prototypes of larger caliber for potential use in percutaneous procedures. Initially, BC Tech will manufacture MedClose systems on a limited basis and does not expect to commence large-scale manufacturing until the CPC has obtained commercial application approvals.

• Roche Diagnostics (Penzberg, Germany) and Exiqon (Vedb k, Denmark) said they have entered into a license agreement for use of the SYBR Green reagent in polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Under terms of the agreement, Exiqon obtains from Roche a non-exclusive license to use SYBR Green I in teal-yime PCR.

Roche said SYBR Green provides the simplest and most economical format for detecting and quantitating PCR products in real-time PCR reactions.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

• IntelligentMDx (Cambridge, Massachusetts) reported that it is working with the Battelle Eastern Science and Technology Center (Columbus, Ohio) to conduct assay performance verification studies of its nucleic acid-based diagnostic or "smart" molecular diagnostic assays. Under terms of the agreement Battelle will perform various testing of IntelligentMDx's Quantitative BK Virus Real-Time PCR Assay to identify its performance characteristics. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

• DR Systems (San Diego), makers of the Unity RIS/PACS, reported five new contracts with healthcare facilities, totaling about $2.55 million. The five new facilities with which DR has contracts include Mid-Columbia Medical Center (Dalles, Oregon), Millcreek Community Hospital (Erie, Pennsylvania), Excela Health Westmoreland Hospital at Jeannette (Jeannette, Pennsylvania), Corvallis Clinic (Corvallis, Oregon) and Windsong Radiology at Hamburg (Hamburg, New York).

• Premier Purchasing Partners (San Diego) reported new agreements for arterial blood gas kits with Smiths Medical ASD (Weston, Massachusetts) and Vital Signs (Totowa, New Jersey).

Effective Dec. 1, the 36-month agreements are available to acute-care and continuum-of-care members of the Premier healthcare alliance.

• All Cessna Citation owners, crew and passengers will receive access to an upgraded, life-saving MedAire medical kit, due to its recent partnership with MedAire (Tempe, Arizona). Effective Dec. 1, Cessna, a Textron (Providence, Rhode Island) company, will offer specialty medical kits from MedAire either as standard equipment or as an option on Citation business jets.

A MedAire-manufactured Aircraft First Aid Kit will be placed on the Cessna XLS+ with the rest of the fleet adding the kit in 2009. When the kit medications expire, MedAire can refurbish each kit with current supplies.