All newborns in Montana will be screened for cystic fibrosis (CF). Montana is the 37th state in the country, plus the District of Columbia, to join the roster of states that support routine CF screening at birth.

“We congratulate Montana on joining a growing list of states dedicated to supporting newborn screening for cystic fibrosis,” said Robert Beall, PhD, president/CEO of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (Washington). “Early diagnosis for CF is critically important because it gives every newborn a better chance for better health and a longer life.”

Cystic fibrosis is a fatal genetic disease that affects 30,000 children and adults in the U.S. Newborn screening for cystic fibrosis is important because more than 10 million Americans are unknowing, symptomless carriers of a cystic fibrosis gene. And, most people who have a child with CF are not aware of a family history of the disease. Cystic fibrosis causes thick mucus to build up in the lungs and other organs, causing life-threatening infections and serious digestive complications.

Fire dept. equips with Cardiac Science AEDs

Cardiac Science (Bothell, Washington), a maker of cardiac diagnosis, resuscitation, rehabilitation, and informatics products, said that the Los Angeles County Fire Department has equipped its first-responder units with 425 Powerheart G3 and G3 Pro automated external defibrillators (AEDs).

Features on the G3 Pro include the industry's first ECG color display in an AED, manual override, three-lead monitoring and multiple rescue capability. These products also provide the ability to download rescue data to LA County Fire’s data management system directly from the device, simplifying medical review and reporting of cardiac events.

ExonHit Therapeutics creates new units

ExonHit Therapeutics (Paris), a drug and diagnostic discovery company, said that it has created two new business units: the Molecular Diagnostics and Genomic Services Unit and the Therapeutics Unit.

John Jaskowiak has been named head of the Molecular Diagnostics and Genomic Services Unit, and Matt Pando has been named head of the Therapeutics Unit. The company also has recruited two new collaborators: Anders Ingvarsson as VP of marketing of molecular diagnostics and James Douglas as VP of corporate strategy and projects.

Bruno Tocque, ExonHit’s president of the management board said, “The technical and management skills of our new collaborators, as well as their combined experience in the development of new diagnostics and in the service business will be of significant importance while we progress towards launching our first Alzheimer’s disease diagnostic from blood.”

ExonHit provides analysis of alternative RNA splicing, a process which when deregulated plays a key role in the onset of various diseases.

Reglera gets ISO certifications

The international standards 13485 and 9001 for quality systems are normally awarded to medical device manufacturers and suppliers. However, due to their suite of outsourced compliance products, Reglera (Lakewood, Colorado), a regulatory and quality consulting company, has been awarded ISO 13485:2003 and ISO 9001:2000 certification by notified body BSI Management Systems.

ISO 13485:2003 and 9001:2000 are international quality standards for medical devices and device suppliers. Technical committees comprised of members from many national standards organizations develop ISO standards. Consequently, companies awarded these ISO standard certifications are internationally recognized as upholding ISO’s superlative quality standards in their own quality systems.

CSMG opens new subsidiary in California

CSMG Technologies (Corpus Christi, Texas), a technology management company, said its Live Tissue Connect (LTC) subsidiary will open new headquarters in Santa Barbara, California. LTC’s surgical tissue bonding/welding device is a platform technology that bonds and reconnects human soft tissue through fusion.

Don Robbins, president/CEO of CSMG Technologies, said, “We are at the point where we need to open a LTC headquarters and operations office. We believe Southern California, where we’re already performing most of our development, manufacturing and marketing work, would be ideal. Locating our office central to our suppliers and employees simply made the most economic sense.”