A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Viaspace (Pasadena, California), subsidiary Ionfinity has been awarded a $750,000 Phase II contract for its proposal titled "Advanced Robotic Detection of Chemical Agents, Toxic Industrial Gases, and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED)s for Force Health Protection," submitted to the Army Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program.

This competitively selected two-year contract will result in a field demonstration of high-sensitivity detection and analysis capability for chemical agents and explosives that threaten U.S. forces. In addition to developing products for the $55 billion security industry, the new sensor technology is expected to have commercial applications in environmental monitoring, agriculture and medicine.

Ionfinity's contract is to develop a chemical agent sensor through a joint collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, General Dynamics, Sionex and Imaginative Technologies. The chemical sensor system consists of a new and powerful detector called a Differential Mobility Spectrometer, a novel "soft-ionization" method that does not fragment or multiply-ionize sampled species, and a micro-gas chromatograph for confirmation and enhanced detection capability.

The goal of the effort is to demonstrate a commercialized prototype of an enhanced version of the General Dynamics JUNO system that is inexpensive, compact, totally integrated and very rugged.

The new detection and analysis system can be used to identify chemical and biowarfare agents, industrial toxic gases, and chemical components of Improvised Explosive Devices in air, water or solids. It is designed to be integrated with unmanned ground vehicles for medical force health protection and combat casualty care missions.

In other agreements/contracts news:

• InforMedix Holdings (Rockville, Maryland) reported an alliance with Audiopoint (also Rockville), to provide voice-enabled communications, automatic speech recognition, and medication compliance and persistence information services in real-time on mobile devices; to improve medication compliance and persistence, which reduces healthcare costs and increases pharmaceutical company and pharmacy sales revenues. Audiopoint is a provider of voice and data services.

InforMedix's Med-eXpert and Med-ePhone systems provide real-time, customizable, actionable information about the medication adherence and health status of chronically ill patients using any cellular or home telephone service. The joint technology combines Audiopoint's consumer-centric voice portal with InforMedix's Med-eXpert system to link patient data with each of the key stakeholders administering care including family members, pharmacists, caregivers and physicians.

Under the agreement, InforMedix and Audiopoint will market InforMedix's Med-ePhone System to both companies' existing and future non-healthcare corporate and consumer customers.