A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Affymetrix (Santa Clara, California) and Partners HealthCare (PC; Boston) said that they have entered into a three-year translational research collaboration to develop microarray-based diagnostics for complex diseases such as newborn hearing loss, autism and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Partners researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS; Boston), Partners HealthCare, and Harvard Medical School-Partners HealthCare Center for Genetics and Genomics (HPCGG) will create and validate microarray tests in Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments laboratories.

"This collaboration with Affymetrix will allow us to better translate innovations and research discoveries at Partners into highly valuable clinical diagnostic tests and technologies that will improve patient management and care," said Trung Do, executive director of business development at PC.

In other agreements news:

• Abbott (Abbott Park, Illinois) said it has signed an agreement with the American Red Cross (ARC; Atlanta) to supply 20 of its Abbott Prism System fully automated blood screening instruments for ARC's five U.S. National Testing Laboratories. These laboratories test 7 million units of blood annually. The contract begins immediately and is expected to run through 2011. No additional terms were disclosed.

Abbott's PRISM System is used to screen donated blood by more than 30 countries, or more than 25% of the global blood supply, according to the company.

• CardioVascular BioTherapeutics (Las Vegas) reported signing a master service agreement with leading global clinical research organization (CRO) Kendle (Cincinnati). Kendle will support CVBT in its Phase II clinical trial ensuring that the protocol and study adhere to FDA regulatory requirements. Kendle has worked with CVBT to finalize the protocol that will be submitted to the FDA.

The clinical trial is evaluating CVBT's drug candidate, with Cardio Vascu-Grow as its active ingredient, which is injected into no-option heart patients to stimulate the growth of new blood vessels, a process called angiogenesis.

The Phase II clinical trial is planned to be an international, multi-site clinical trial performed in the U.S., Canada and Europe, for patients not eligible for traditional interventional therapies such as bypass or stenting procedures. Kendle is now screening sites for participation in the Phase II clinical trial.

• Positron (Houston), a developer of PET medical devices, reported that it has partnered with MIMvista (Cleveland) to provide MIMcardiac display and analysis software for their mPower brand scanners.

MIMcardiac, part of the MIMvista Corporation fusion and display software suite, will provide Positron's customers the ability to register 3-D computed tomograph coronary angiograms (3D CTCA) and functional cardiac studies acquired on the mPower scanner, as well as triangulate between 3-D and cross-sectional images.

• iCAD (Nashua, New Hampshire), a provider of computer-aided detection (CAD) solutions, and FujiFilm Medical Systems USA (Stamford, Connecticut), a provider of digital mammography technology, reported that Fuji will offer iCAD products through its U.S. sales channels.

FujiiFilm said iCAD's SecondLook Digital and TotalLook products with the newly released version 7.2 broaden and strengthen the Fuji Computed Radiography for Mammography (FCRm) offerings by providing computer-aided cancer detection capabilities and a complete transition to digital mammography.

"The agreement with iCAD allows Fuji to offer a comprehensive solution to our customers. We plan to offer the standard-of-care iCAD products with our multiple digital mammography solutions," says Andy Vandergrift, national marketing manager, Women's Healthcare at Fuji. "FCRm represents the most recent digital mammography system to have passed the FDA's rigorous PMA process. Since the ACRIN-DMIST found digital mammography to be more accurate than film screen for a considerable percentage of women in the trial, more facilities have been actively seeking a digital mammography solution that best meets their clinical and workflow needs."

• HemoCue (Lake Forest, California) and Independent Medical Co-Op (IMCO; Daytona Beach, Florida) have entered into a distribution agreement that HemoCue said will lead to growth in both the physician office lab and hospital markets.

IMCO is a member-based co-op for medical supply distributors. HemoCue makes medical testing systems including hemoglobin, glucose, and urine albumin point-of-care systems.