A Medical Device Daily

Minrad International (Orchard Park, New York) said it has notified RxElite Holdings (Meridian, Idaho) that it is transitioning its relationship with respect to RxElite's rights to be exclusive distributor of certain Minrad anesthetic products in the U.S.

Minrad said it has decided to move into a non-exclusive distributor agreement with RxElite.

"As we discussed in our second-quarter conference call on Aug. 14, we have had ongoing dialogue with the senior management of RxElite to assess and determine how to increase our joint penetration of anesthetic products in the U.S.," said David DiGiacinto, president/COO of Minrad. "We believe this action will maximize the expertise of sales forces of both companies as well as the in-house support capabilities which RxElite has built to launch sevoflurane in the U.S. human anesthetic market."

Kirk Kamsler, Minrad's senior VP of commercial development, said the company would work toward ensuring that "this ongoing change in selling strategy for our present and future anesthetics in the U.S. market will be transparent to both the distribution customers and end users of this product." Minrad already launched in June a direct selling effort for sevoflurane and isoflurane into the U.S. veterinary market, he said.

Minrad is an interventional pain management company with real-time image guidance, anesthesia and analgesia, conscious sedation product lines.

In other agreement/contract news:

• Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis) reported an exclusive agreement with IsoSciences (King of Prussia, Pennsylvania) to distribute isotopically labeled bioactive compounds and their metabolites through its Aldrich division. IsoSciences provides biological compounds and custom synthesis products. Aldrich, provider of Isotec Stable Isotopes, makes stable isotope products for biomolecular NMR, proteomics, metabolic and MRI research.

• Premier Purchasing Partners (San Diego) said a new agreement for histology and cytology instruments, reagents and consumables has been signed with Richard-Allan Scientific Company, a business unit of Thermo Fisher Scientific (Waltham, Massachusetts), which also includes Thermo Shandon products.

The 36-month agreement, effective Oct. 1, is available to acute-care and continuum-of-care members of the Premier healthcare alliance.

Premier serves more than 2,000 U.S. hospitals and 53,000-plus other healthcare sites and is owned by not-for-profit hospitals.