A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Satoris (Redwood City, California), a molecular diagnostics company specializing in blood-based tests for Alzheimer's disease (AD), will begin a collaborative study with the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (Mayo Clinic; Rochester, Minnesota) to validate the use of plasma biomarkers for early detection of mild-to-moderate AD. These biomarkers may also predict the progression of patients from a state of mild cognitive impairment to AD.

Satoris researchers first reported the use of AD related biomarkers in the November, 2007 edition of the peer-reviewed scientific journal, Nature Medicine. In the reported study, researchers analyzed 259 stored blood samples, comparing those from individuals with presymptomatic to late-stage AD with those from individuals without the disease. Using a technique known as signal profiling, they were able to simultaneously measure the relative abundance of 120 known proteins found in plasma that function as chemical messengers between blood cells, brain cells, and cells of the immune system.

"We welcome the opportunity to collaborate with Mayo Clinic researchers in confirming the performance and utility of our blood test for Alzheimer's," said Cris McReynolds, president/CEO of Satoris. "Continued validation, we believe, will lead to commercial release of this test, initially for research use in late summer 2008, and ultimately for clinical use, following the necessary regulatory approvals."

In other agreements:

• Cardinal Health (Dublin, Ohio) reported an exclusive agreement with UltraSPECT (Haifa, Israel) to provide imaging processing software to cut scanning time in half or double the image resolution of existing nuclear medical imaging equipment.

Terms of the multiyear agreement, give Cardinal exclusive U.S. distribution rights for UltraSPECT's Wide Beam Reconstruction image processing packages for cardiac and bone nuclear imaging applications. WBR products address the clinical needs for significant reduction in acquisition time, boosting patient throughput and comfort without sacrificing image quality, and for substantial improvement in image resolution in bone imaging, offering better lesion localization and higher diagnostic confidence. The image processing packages are compatible with most major brands of nuclear medical imaging equipment.

"UltraSPECT's products offer cost-effective solutions that leverage the investment of existing equipment by increasing patient throughput and department productivity by more than 50% with no trade-off in image quality," said John Schaumburg, president of UltraSPECT. "Our partnership with Cardinal Health will build upon our 120 installations across the U.S. and accelerate the adoption of this technology."

Cardinal Health provides products and services that help hospitals, physician offices and pharmacies reduce costs, improve safety, productivity and profitability, and deliver better care to patients.

• Quadraspec (West Lafayette, Indiana) and Antech Diagnostics (Irvine, California) have signed a contract allowing Antech to upgrade their laboratories with Quadraspec's SDI (Spinning Disc Interferometry) detection technology.

Antech is a veterinary diagnostic lab serving more than 12,000 animal hospitals, zoos and government agencies worldwide. Quadraspec has installed the detection technology of Inspira Sample Handlers and Readers in the Lake Success, New York and the Oak Brook, Illinois, laboratories.

Quadraspec technology allows for the processing of 3,500 to 5,000 samples per night with a single reader. The system also features a unique 272-well format.

• Cardiac Science (Bothell, Washington), a specialist in cardiac diagnosis, resuscitation, rehabilitation, and informatics products, has signed a letter of intent to begin establishing Heartcentrix ECG connectivity with the Misys MyWay electronic medical record (EMR) system from Misys Healthcare (London).

The HeartCentrix solution from Cardiac Science helps bring patient history, clinical charting, e-prescribing, lab orders, results, and patient follow-up information together into a single EMR application.

• Piedmont Heart Institute (PHI; Atlanta) said it has expanded its expertise with the addition of the 20-member cardiovascular physician practice, Cardiology of Georgia, P.C. (COG), through a formal agreement with Piedmont Healthcare (also Atlanta). With eight locations including Buckhead, Canton, Fayetteville and North Fulton, COG will become a new group practice under the Piedmont Heart Institute and an important addition to PHI as it continues to propel new programs in cardiovascular research, education and excellence in prevention, arrhythmias, coronary and vascular intervention, stroke and cardiac imaging.