A Medical Device Daily

Lumera (Bothell, Washington), a provider of light-applied nanotechnology, reported an expanded collaboration with the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB), a non-profit research institute.

The revised agreement will focus on detection methods for an array of diagnostic biomarkers aimed at various cancers, extending an agreement between them developed in February 2005. ISB was the first academic institution to test Lumera’s ProteomicProcessor.

“We have been particularly pleased with the flexibility and functionality of Lumera’s ProteomicProcessor instrument and their NanoCapture chips,” said Leroy Hood, president and co-founder of ISB and an expert in molecular immunology, biotechnology and genomics. “We [are] continuing to utilize this technology on our quest to usher in a new era of predictive, preventive and personalized medicine.”

Lumera said that its ProteomicProcessor is set to be launched as a “refined” commercial product in January at the CHI PepTalk conference, a forum for protein arrays and detection technologies.

The initial commercial launch of the ProteomicProcessor and NanoCapture microarrays will be focused on the therapeutic antibody screening market, where there is demand for kinetic and affinity analysis in a high throughput format. The ProteomicProcessor offers kinetic and affinity analysis in a high throughput specifically for the screening process in early drug discovery.

Lumera designs molecular structures and polymer compounds for the bioscience and communications/computing industries. The company also has developed proprietary processes for fabricating such devices.

In other agreements:

MedAssets (Atlanta) reported that Clarian Health Partners (Indianapolis) has extended its agreement with MedAssets Supply Chain Systems for supply chain management solutions until 2013. The original five-year agreement was effective in January 2003.

In addition, Clarian’s five acute care facilities will begin utilizing MedAssets Analytical Systems’ supply chain technology and services as well as MedAssets Net Revenue Systems’ CrossWalk technology to link supply cost data with hospital chargemaster data.

Clarian Health Partners will also engage the services of MedAssets Analytical Systems for data cleansing of the supply item file and advanced supply chain analytics technology.

MedAssets will create a custom contract catalog that will serve as central repository of all local, regional and national supply agreements and will ensure that the lowest price is paid for items purchased. MedAssets’ Strategic Information technology and services will allow Clarian Health Partners to aggregate supply data from multiple facilities and create actionable reports to identify cost savings opportunities.