A Medical Device Daily

Viking Systems (San Diego), a manufacturer of 3-D vision systems for use in minimally-invasive surgical (MIS) procedures, has expanded access of its 3Di Digital Vision System to surgeons and hospitals through an agreement with ForTec Medical (Streetsboro, Ohio).

ForTec, which focuses on surgical laser and image systems mobile rental business, will add the 3Di System to its product offering while ForTec expands its business beyond urology into the gynecology and bariatric surgical specialties.

Viking Systems and ForTec Medical said they will begin operations in the North Central and Southeastern U.S. with plans for future expansion.

In other agreements:

• The WiCell Research Institute (Madison, Wisconsin) and Advanced Cell Technology (ACT; Alameda, California) reported an agreement, in principle, to collaborate to jointly distribute to U.S. scientists a range of new cell lines.

These stem cell lines would be produced using a recently reported technique in the peer-reviewed journal Nature, provided that the U.S. federal government recognizes these new lines and funds research utilizing them. Under their collaboration, agreed in principle, ACT and WiCell hope to make the new stem cell lines readily available to U.S. scientists for medical research.

In its role as the National Stem Cell Bank, WiCell says it has taken a “leadership role” in providing cells to academic researchers by providing a free license and training to scientists interested in pursuing this new technology, it said. More than 350 academic research groups are working with cells from WiCell.

WiCell, a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), would distribute stem cell lines derived from ACT's method, if approved by the president and the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, Maryland).

• BioElectronics (Frederick, Maryland) said that it has signed a sales agent agreement with Extremity Solutions & Seacoast Surgical (Attleboro, Massachusetts) for Extremity to sell the ActiPatch product in six New England states.

BioElectronics has also signed a distribution agreement with Marchildon (Montreal) for distribution of ActiPatch in the province of Quebec to hospitals, surgical centers, clinics, physicians and other providers.