A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Gen-Probe (San Diego) reported that 3M (St. Paul, Minnesota) has informed it that it will no longer fund their joint collaboration to develop rapid molecular assays for the food testing industry. The companies expect to formally terminate the collaboration in the coming days.

“Gen-Probe continues to believe that rapid molecular tests have the potential — over time — to increase the safety of the world’s food supply,” said Hank Nordhoff, Gen-Probe’s president/CEO and chairman. He said that the collaboration depends on 3M’s effort “to assess the commercial readiness of the food testing market” and provide further funding. Thus, with 3M’s decision, Gen-Probe will redirect resources “to other high-value projects, including our separate partnership with 3M to develop rapid molecular tests for healthcare-associated infections.”

Gen-Probe said it still anticipates recording milestone revenue of $2 million in 4Q07 associated with achieving technological feasibility for potential food testing assays, revenue potential contemplated in the financial guidance the company provided on Oct. 30. In 2008, the company expects collaborative research revenues to be about $2 million less than previously anticipated due to the absence of development reimbursement from 3M related to the food testing collaboration.

“Food safety remains an important growth platform for 3M,” said Chuck Kummeth, VP and general manager, 3M Medical Division. “But we have chosen to focus on opportunities other than molecular food testing that are more economically attractive. This decision does not affect our separate partnership with Gen-Probe to develop nucleic acid tests to detect dangerous healthcare-associated infections such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).”

In other agreements:

• Radiotherapy Simulators and Accelerators (RS&A; Rural Hall, North Carolina), a provider in the U.S. Southeast of oncology equipment sales and service, reported an alliance with Radiology Oncology Systems (ROS; Exton, Pennsylvania) and Acceletronics (San Diego) to market and support the TheraView Electronic Portal Imaging for Image Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT) and Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) verification.

ROS, RS&A, and Acceletronics’ relationship includes the co-marketing of pre-owned/refurbished IMRT and IGRT-equipped linear accelerators, CT and MRI Scanners, and other imaging equipment.

ROS develops equipment for radiation oncology and diagnostic imaging facilities around the world with quality, cost-effective solutions for equipment. Acceletronics specializes in onsite-repair of medical imaging equipment.

• Vermillion (Fremont, California) reported that Ohio State University (OSU, Columbus) will offer Vermillion’s diagnostic test for managing patients with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), a hematologic disease. Vermillion will license the TTP assay, co-developed with the OSU Research Foundation, to OSU for availability through the OSU reference laboratory. OSU expects the test to be available by the end of the month.

Using SELDI mass spectrometry, the TTP test directly measures enzymatic levels and is expected to provide precise, quantitative and reproducible results with better turnaround time when compared to current methods.

TTP is a life-threatening blood-clotting disorder caused by a deficiency in the enzyme ADAMTS13. Loss of this enzyme causes platelet clumping and red blood cell destruction, and can lead to neurological abnormalities and abnormalities in kidney function. Correct diagnosis and continual monitoring of patients with TTP is critical for selecting the proper course of treatment.

• Aperio Technologies (Vista, California) reported it has secured an exclusive worldwide license from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL, New Mexico) for the use of LANL’s Genetic Imagery Exploration (Genie Pro) image pattern recognition technology in the digital pathology market.

Aperio will incorporate Genie Pro into its Spectrum digital pathology information management software, enabling it to be used as a pre-processing engine for various tissue scoring algorithms, such as finding tumor regions in digital immunohistochemistry slides. Genie Pro also will be offered as a general pattern recognition tool for applications that include rare event detection, content-based image retrieval, and tissue classification.

“Incorporating a progressive analysis tool like Genie Pro into the Aperio product suite enables us to provide our customers with a next generation image pattern recognition technology for digital slide images that requires little training to create compelling results,” said Dirk Soenksen, founder and CEO of Aperio.

Genie Pro enables powerful pattern recognition tools to be tailored for specific applications, without software development or image analysis expertise.

• Bracco Diagnostics (Princeton, New Jersey) reported it was awarded a three-and-a-half-year agreement to provide X-ray contrast media to HealthTrust Purchasing Group (Brentwood, Tennessee) in a deal that includes Isovue (iopamidol injection) and ionic iodinated contrast media products.

This comes on the heels of an October collaboration in which Bracco Imaging agreed to provide MRI contrast media products to HealthTrust members through Aug. 31, 2010.

“We see this as a great opportunity to demonstrate the continued value Bracco brings through our X-ray and MRI contrast media to HealthTrust’s members,” said Carlo Medici, president and CEO of Bracco.