A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Varian Medical Systems (Palo Alto, California) reported the execution of a three-year, $320 million contract for Varian to supply medical imaging subcomponents to Toshiba America Medical Systems (Tustin, California) for integration into diagnostic imaging equipment for the global market. Orders will be booked over the period of the agreement.

"This contract marks the latest chapter in our 30-year relationship with Toshiba Medical Systems," said Robert Kluge, corporate senior vice president at Varian. "Over the years, our two companies have developed a close cooperation at all levels of the business. We have complementary design engineering and manufacturing capabilities, and work together well to realize new products and improve existing ones."

Varian makes devices and software to treat cancer and other medical conditions with radiotherapy, radiosurgery, proton therapy and brachytherapy.

In other grants/contracts news:

• Positron (Houston) reported that it has entered into an exclusive sales and marketing agreement with NuView Radiopharmaceuticals (Park City, Utah).

NuView will act as exclusive agent for Positron's brand of PET, SPECT and automated dose-dispensing systems. NuView has an established network of 35 salespeople located across the country.

"We're very pleased to have been selected by Positron to represent their automated dose drawing, SPECT and PET diagnostic imaging technologies in the U.S.," said Paul Crowe, CEO of NuView. He added, "Positron is introducing the first dedicated cardiac PET unit for the private-practice physician. The clinical imaging benefits of PET over other imaging modalities are well established."

NuView is a privately held, emerging company that developing new, novel radiopharmaceuticals for the molecular imaging sector. Positron develops cardiac molecular imaging solutions.

• Doe & Ingalls (Baltimore) has signed an exclusive agreement to distribute BioVectra (Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island) bioprocessing reagents, molecular biology reagents and enzymes in the U.S. BioVectra previously distributed these products through an Oxford, Connecticut, location of the diagnostics division of its former parent company, which was acquired by Genzyme Diagnostics in November 2007.

• Imaging Dynamics (IDC; Calgary, Alberta), a provider of digital radiography (DR), reported that Booth Radiology Associates (Washington Township and Woodbury, New Jersey) has bought two 1600 Plus X-Series DR systems to complete its transition to digital imaging.

Booth Radiology, which recently opened its third location in Stratford, New Jersey, to serve patients in Camden County, is in its final stages of upgrading all of its imaging systems to digital technology.