A Medical Device Daily

ATS Medical (Minneapolis), a maker of cardiac surgery products and services, reported an exclusive distribution agreement with Novare Surgical Systems (Cupertino, California) for Novare's Enclose II cardiac anastomosis assist device. ATS Medical will distribute the device in the U.S., Germany, France and the UK.

The Enclose II anastomosis assist device is used by cardiac surgeons to attach a bypass vessel to the aorta during coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. It is estimated that more than 800,000 CABG procedures are performed worldwide each year.

ATS Medical President/CEO/Chairman Michael Dale noted, “Our exclusive distribution agreement with Novare Surgical Systems is another step towards our goal of becoming a more diversified cardiac surgery business through new business development. The Enclose II device broadens our product offerings and allows us greater opportunities to support cardiac surgeons in the treatment of structural heart disease. We can more optimally leverage the call points, purchasing pathways and sales, marketing and distribution infrastructure that we have successfully developed.”

Hospira (Lake Forest, Illinois), a global hospital products company, reported a new, national agreement with HealthTrust Purchasing Group (HealthTrust; Brentwood, Tennessee) to provide its member organizations access to Hospira's line of pain management infusion pumps. The contract provides access to Hospira's LifeCare PCA and GemStar pain management infusion systems.

The LifeCare PCA (patient-controlled analgesia) infusion system, introduced in early 2006, uses an integrated approach designed to help clinicians reduce potential medication and dose programming errors, while allowing hospital patients the flexibility to control the delivery of their pain medication, within specified limits.

In other contract news, Cybergenetics (Pittsburgh) reported that it has been awarded a contract by New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) to apply its unique TrueAllele technology for identifying World Trade Center (WTC) remains. Cybergenetics offers automated forensic DNA interpretation technology.

Dr. Mechthild Prinz, director of the OCME Forensic Biology Department, “anticipates that the use of the TrueAllele technology on the WTC effort will yield additional results.” The OCME has identified the remains of 1,598 victims through DNA testing and other forensic methods. However, 1,151 missing people — 42% of all WTC victims — have not yet been identified. And 9,797 of the 20,730 victim remains specimens recovered from the WTC site have not yet been identified.