A Diagnostics & Imaging Week
Masimo (Irvine, California) reported an agreement with Schiller (Zurich, Switzerland) a supplier of electrocardiographs, spirometers, patient monitors and external defibrillators, to integrate the Masimo Rainbow SET technology platform as the foundational technology of choice for all their patient monitoring solutions worldwide.
Masimo Rainbow SET, is an upgradeable noninvasive technology platform featuring the accuracy and reliability of Masimo SET Measure-Through Motion and Low Perfusion pulse oximetry. It measures total hemoglobin and oxygen content (both pending FDA clearance), in addition to carboxyhemoglobin methemoglobin, pleth variability index, oxyhemoglobin, perfusion index (PI) and pulse rate.
The ability to quickly and continuously measure SpHb, SpOC, SpMet, SpCO, PVI, SpO2, PR, and PI noninvasively may help clinicians to save lives by more rapidly diagnosing potentially life-threatening conditions, speeding treatment decisions and improving patient outcomes. SpHb may make hemoglobin testing quick, convenient and accessible to medical personnel in both acute and outpatient settings enabling them to quickly identify conditions of anemia, or blood loss. The availability of real-time continuous SpOC may help to ensure optimal oxygen delivery in patients during rapidly-changing clinical situations.
By continuously and noninvasively monitoring methemoglobin, clinicians can accurately determine if drugs they are administering are causing methemoglobinemia, which can lead to brain damage and even death.
In other agreements:
• Metabolon (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina) and the Harvard-Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics (HPCGG; Boston), a program dedicated to promoting genetics and genomics in research and clinical medicine, reported that they have signed an agreement to develop an improved diagnostic test for enabling a more accurate dosing of warfarin. Warfarin is a blood thinning agent prescribed extensively during the last 50 years, causes more than 700,000 adverse events per year due to improper dosing.
There are several academic and commercial efforts currently underway, including the Partners CROWN trial aimed at examining the effectiveness of stratifying patients for warfarin dosing based on a patient's genetics. Now, in addition to studying the impact of genetics on warfarin dosing, HPCGG seeks to also examine whether a patient's metabolomic profile might also increase the likelihood of dosing warfarin correctly.
Metabolon also said that Partners HealthCare (Boston) investigators have received preferred access to Metabolon's global biochemical profiling platform. Metabolon currently provides these services to the top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as other agriculture, consumer product and bioprocessing organizations. These services provide for the extraction, identification and quantitation of hundreds of small molecule biochemicals in a given biological sample. Significantly altered metabolites are then highlighted in extensive biochemical interpretation provided by Metabolon scientists.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
• Third Wave Technologies (Madison, Wisconsin) and DCL Medical Laboratories (Indianapolis) have formed a partnership in which DCL will serve as a product development partner with Third Wave.
DCL said it will adopt products from Third Wave's molecular diagnostic menu and have early access to new assays and equipment developed by Third Wave, and Third Wave will establish a R&D laboratory at DCL for joint product research, including a customer demonstration facility for Third Wave products.
Third Wave develops and markets molecular diagnostic reagents for a variety of DNA and RNA analysis applications.
DCL, founded in 1984, is a laboratory with operations across the Midwest, including specialty testing in molecular diagnostics.