A Medical Device Daily

Cordis (Miami Lakes, Florida) reported that it has signed an agreement to become the worldwide distributor of Brivant 's (Galway, Ireland) advanced guidewires, used to place catheters and drug-eluting stents in a patient's coronary system. The wires can also be used for products targeting the peripheral system.

The three products covered under this agreement include a general-purpose guidewire, a guidewire targeted for highly stenosed lesions and a specialty J-tip guidewire used to navigate challenging anatomies.

Cordis will market these guidewire products under an umbrella brand known as Regatta.

Cordis is a Johnson & Johnson (New Brunswick, New Jersey) business.

In other agreements news:

• Zelos Therapeutics (Ottawa, Ontario), a private biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapies for patients suffering from osteoporosis, and Nektar Therapeutics (San Carlos, California) reported the initiation of a Phase 1 clinical trial of an inhaled powder formulation of Zelos' parathyroid hormone Ostabolin-C (cyclic PTH-(1-31)).

Nektar and Zelos entered into a collaboration to develop an inhaleable powder form of Ostabolin-C in January 2005.

“Ostabolin-C is a powerful new bone formation agent that we believe will emerge as a best-in-class PTH for the treatment of osteoporosis. A key to expanding the market for bone formation therapies will be the development of convenient non-injectable delivery alternatives that can improve both patient compliance and thus, treatment outcomes in osteoporosis,” said Brian MacDonald, PhD, CEO of Zelos. “Our strategy is to evaluate several delivery options for Ostabolin-C . . .”

The Phase 1 trial is a single-center, randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled, escalating-dose study that will enroll up to 56 healthy postmenopausal women. The study will evaluate 28 days of dosing. The dry powder formulation of Ostabolin-C will be administered using Nektar's pocket-sized dry powder inhaler.