A Medical Device Daily

Aesculap (St. Louis) said it has been awarded supplier agreements with Amerinet (St. Louis), a national healthcare group purchasing organization.

The two agreements, effective Feb. 1, 2008 through Jan. 31, 2011, provides Amerinet’s acute care members access to Aesculap’s sutures and Histoacryl tissue adhesive products.

While Aesculap and Amerinet already had a supplier contract for sutures, the new agreement gives Amerinet members access to Histoacryl tissue adhesive, one of the company’s latest wound closure products, which was approved by FDA in 2007.

According to Aesculap, Histoacryl is the only skin adhesive available in both optically clear and blue formulations. Both formulations polymerize in seconds, require only a single-layer application, and provide one of the highest bond strength of all FDA-approved topical skin adhesives, the company said.

Histoacryl is manufactured by B. Braun (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) and has been marketing outside the U.S. for more than 30 years. In the U.S., Histoacryl is distributed by the Aesculap subsidiary of B. Braun in partnership with TissueSeal (Ann Arbor, Michigan).

Amerinet says it serves more than 25,000 acute and non-acute healthcare providers nationwide.