A Medical Device Daily
The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP; Horsham, Pennsylvania), a nonprofit organization that increases understanding and educates healthcare professionals and the public about medication error prevention, and iGuard.org (Princeton, New Jersey), a free, drug safety monitoring service, reported their partnership aimed at increasing consumers' knowledge about their medications and empowering them to better safeguard their health.
The number of prescriptions, over-the-counter medications and supplements available to consumers has risen dramatically in the last few years. The risk of medication errors and adverse drug reactions has increased as well. In an effort to help patients better protect themselves, ISMP and iGuard.org have joined forces to provide consumers with a new online tool that offers alerts, news, and expert opinions on medication safety.
In other agreements/contracts news:
• Caliber Therapeutics (Princeton, New Jersey) reported a partnership with DSM Biomedical (Heerlen, the Netherlands) to develop a drug delivery balloon catheter that can be used to treat vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis.
The partnership will combine proprietary technology from DSM on drug delivery with balloon and catheter technology from Caliber. In addition, DSM will grant Caliber a worldwide exclusive license for the use of DSM's recently launched Trancerta drug delivery platform for the development of this specific application.
• Premier Purchasing Partners (San Diego) reported that new agreements for car rental services have been awarded to Budget Rent A Car System (Parsippany, New Jersey) and Hertz (Park Ridge, New Jersey).
The 36-month agreements, effective Nov. 1, are available to acute and continuum of care members of the Premier healthcare alliance.
Premier also said that deals for paper towel and tissue have been awarded to Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products (Atlanta) and Kimberly-Clark (Dallas).
The 36-month agreements, effective October 1, 2008, are available to acute and continuum of care members of the Premier healthcare alliance.
• IntegraMed America (Purchase, New York) said that Reproductive Associates of Delaware (Newark, Delaware) has joined its network of fertility centers. This is the fourth fertility affiliate to join the IntegraMed network in 2008.
As an affiliate, Reproductive Associates of Delaware will receive distribution rights to IntegraMed's consumer products and services, and will have the right to receive other products and services specifically designed to support the business needs of high-growth fertility centers.
Among the services Affiliates may access is the IntegraMed Shared Risk Refund Program. This program enables patients to increase their chance of success at In-Vitro Fertilization by pre-paying for multiple cycles at a discounted rate, allowing them to stay in treatment longer and improve the opportunity to take home a baby.