Alsius (Irvine California) a developer of intravascular temperature management (IVTM) therapies for critically ill patients was awarded a three-year contract with Premier Purchasing Partners (Charlotte, North Carolina) to provide intravascular temperature management products to Premier's network of hospitals. Alsius develops critical-care products. Premier also reported an agreement for active electrode monitoring laparoscopic instruments has been awarded to Encision (Boulder, Colorado). The 36-month contract, effective July 1, is available to acute-care and continuum-of-care members of the Premier healthcare alliance.

Cook Medical (Bloomington, Indiana) said it will have a significantly expanded vendor relationship with HealthTrust Purchasing Group (Brentwood, Tennessee). Cook is now contracted to supply medical devices in the areas of peripheral diagnostics, peripheral intervention, vena cava filters and peripheral stents to HealthTrust's member facilities.

Freescale Semiconductor (Orlando) and Monebo Technologies (Austin, Texas) have forged a partnership to deliver a comprehensive platform for medical equipment using electrocardiogram (ECG) technology. The "ECG-on-a-chip" solution combines Monebo's Kinetic ECG software with Freescale's embedded processing technology to enable medical equipment manufacturers to develop easy-to-use ECG monitoring tools. To help healthcare professionals assess cardiac parameters, Monebo Technologies has developed the Kinetic ECG algorithm, which enables signal processing and interpretation of the ECG waveform. The algorithm provides highly accurate QRS (Q wave, R wave and S wave) detection and feature extraction, beat classification, interval measurement and rhythm interpretation for up to 16 leads of captured ECG data.

Impulse Monitoring (IMI; Columbia, Maryland) said it has signed a two-year exclusive agreement with Emory-Adventist Hospital (Smyrna, Georgia) to provide Emory-Adventist with comprehensive intraoperative neuromonitoring services, including IMI-qualified neurophysiologists and real-time professional oversight by an experienced physician. IONM assesses neurological function involving the brain, spinal cord and related nerve structures during surgery. Use of IONM facilitates the surgical process and can reduce surgical risk by providing alerts to surgeons of potential harm to spinal cord or neural structure.

Iris International (Chatsworth, California) a manufacturer of automated in vitro diagnostics systems and consumables for use in hospitals and commercial laboratories worldwide, reported that its Iris Diagnostics (also Chatsworth) division has renewed its supply agreement for its automated urinalysis systems, related products and consumables with MAGNET Cooperative, one of the largest and most experienced shared-service organizations in the U.S. Under the terms of the new three-year agreement with MAGNET Cooperative, effective May 8, MAGNET is offering the full line of the company's products, including the iQ 200 urine microscopy analyzer, the iQ Body Fluids Module, the Aution MAX AX-4280 automated urine chemistry analyzer, the iChem 100 semi-automated urine chemistry system, along with all related consumables and service agreements.

Medrad (Warrendale, Pennsylvania) reported that it has signed a distribution and co-marketing partnership agreement with Petnet Solutions, a subsidiary of Siemens Medical Solutions (Hoffman Estates, Illinois). The agreement will enable healthcare providers to inject fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) for positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) imaging procedures in an innovative way. The partnership will leverage Medrad's soon-to-be introduced PET infusion system and multi-dose FDG packaging and delivery from Petnet Solutions. Medrad's PET infusion system, to be called Intego, is designed to automatically extract a patient dose from a multi-dose vial and deliver it directly to the patient. Petnet has agreed to provide FDG to customers throughout its extensive, cyclotron-based radiopharmacy network in multi-dose vials and specially designed vial shields, which will allow for easy integration with Medrad's new system.

Olympus America (Center Valley, Pennsylvania) has an agreement with Data Innovations (South Burlington, Vermont) to provide U.S. customers with middleware powered by the Data Innovations Instrument Manager. The agreement between the companies provides laboratories with advanced features to manage data from Olympus AU Chemistry and AU3000i immunoassay systems and to optimize routing, tracking and archiving of specimen tubes for the Olympus OLA2500 automation systems. The agreement gives Olympus the rights to distribute the Data Innovations Instrument Manager in the U.S. Olympus will provide all sales, marketing, service and support of the middleware system. Data Innovations will provide customer training at its facility and through its web-based services.