A Medical Device Daily

SafeMed (San Diego), a provider of analytical software for advanced Clinical Decision Support, reported a collaboration with Google (Mountain View, California) to deliver a new product that would provide personalized health feedback.

Working with Google Health — a new product that is currently being tested in a pilot with the Cleveland Clinic (Medical Device Daily, Feb. 22, 2008) — SafeMed enables users to obtain feedback such as potentially harmful drug interactions and other preventative guidelines based on their own unique Google Health medical profile.

As medical information proliferates on the web, it becomes increasingly difficult for patients to know what content is trusted and medically accurate. SafeMed has collaborated with Google to integrate its SafeMed Analysis Engine into Google Health.

“The SafeMed Analysis Engine evaluates volumes of online information to intelligently identify, rank, and score new treatment options, and identify potentially harmful drug interactions that may already exist,” said Richard Noffsinger, CEO of SafeMed. “The vision behind the new SafeMed integration is to allow consumers to get personalized and precise answers on the safest treatment options within seconds.”

According to the U.S. Institute of Medicine, more than 770,000 people are injured or die each year, in hospitals alone, due to avoidable medical errors. Many of these medical errors could be prevented if patients and doctors had tools that automatically check for drug interactions, side effects, or gaps in care related to a patient’s unique medical history.

In other agreements: McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario) and Biotage (Uppsala, Sweden) said they have signed a two-year extension to a molecular imaging development agreement.

“We used the Biotage Initiator Microwave synthesis system, chromatography cartridges to prepare a range of Carborane Cage structures labeled with rhenium and technetium (Tc99c), the currently most used radionuclide in diagnostic medicine. We reported an 85% reduction in synthesis time and 26% gain in decay corrected yield, when compared to the traditional synthesis methods. The speed, purity and flexibility of this approach will drive the development of a new generation of novel molecular imaging agents,” said John Valliant, associate professor of chemistry and medical physics and acting director of McMaster Institute of Applied Radiation Sciences.

Based on the success of this first phase, both parties have agreed to a two-year extension of the work at McMaster. Valliant said, “The next research phase will expand microwave synthesis to a broader range of radionuclides and probes used in the PET imaging and as therapeutic agents.”

Torben Jörgensen, president/CEO of Biotage said, “Biotage’s mission has always been to develop innovative equipment and consumables that accelerate the drug discovery process. We are very pleased with Valliant’s research to advance the development of radiopharmaceuticals. He has clearly demonstrated the benefits of Biotage key technology to produce molecular imaging agents. The 2-years extension will provide practical solutions to the challenging issues that currently limit the development of novel imaging agents.”