A Medical Device Daily

Mediscience-Tech (Cherry Hill, New Jersey) and Infotonics Research (Rochester, News York) reported an agreement defining Infotonics' responsibilities in the development of the Mediscience Optical Biopsy Pill through the formation of a Newco subsidiary of Mediscience. Infotonics' responsibilities include: leadership in developing a prototype product ready for FDA trials; development of specifications for the Optical Biopsy Ingestible Photonic pill, based on market requirements; and working with Mediscience/Newco to apply for competitive grant funding to supplement prior grants, venture capital investment and accelerate the commercialization project.

All Infotonics IP and related licenses that result from R&D funded by MTC will be owned by MTC with a non-exclusive, world-wide royalty-free license back to Infotonics for fields or use other than medical.

Mediscience CEO Peter Katevatis, said, “This project will enhance Mediscience proprietary noninvasive imaging technology for molecular detection of cancer and physiological change and the company's desire to use the net proceeds of the proposed $5 million to $10 million firm offering to fund commercialization of its platform IP Optical Biopsy Pill technology to its initial FDA application as it also begins to initiate its FDA approved CD-R pilot clinical trials for a cervical diagnostic application adjunct to Pap. The relationship with equity partner Infotonics is a synergistic and strategic fit leveraging Infotonics nano-technology capabilities and resources to provide Mediscience with an exceptional state-of-the-art advantage over competitor's Given-Olympus imaging approach.”

Infotonics, a consortium whose founding participants include Corning, Eastman Kodak, and Xerox, is a not-for-profit corporation that operates New York State's Center of Excellence in Photonics and Microsystems.

Mediscience develops devices that detect cancer and physiological change using frequencies of light that are emitted, scattered and absorbed to distinguish malignant, precancerous, or benign tissues from normal tissues.

In other agreements news:

• Hurel (Beverly Hills, California) has entered into a contract with Schering (Berlin), through its Schering-Plough Research Institute division (SPRI), under which SPRI joins the Joint Scientific Collaboration (JSC) of pharmaceutical firms organized by Hurel.

Invented at Cornell University, a biochip comprising one or more separate but microfluidically interconnected compartments has been developed by Hurel. The compartments contain living cell cultures drawn from and/or representing different organs or tissues of a human or other species. Channels interconnecting the compartments permit compounds and “blood surrogate” to recirculate as in a living system.

The geometry of the system simulates pharmacokinetic parameters – drug residence time, circulatory transit time, or others – mimicing aspects of the physiology of the living animal. When utilized with human cellular material, Hurel constitutes an in vivo surrogate alternative to animal testing.

Under the agreement, SPRI will provide both scientific guidance and funding as Hurel continues its one-year R&D program aimed at validating and developing its microfluidic, “human-on-a-chip,” cell-based assay platform.

Through the JSC, SPRI and Hurel have the goal of putting Hurel's products and services into widespread use.

Dr. Leslie Benet, professor of biopharmaceutical sciences at UCSF and chairman of Hurel's scientific advisory board, said, “At present there are no rapid preclinical tools to mimic the in vivo interplay of enzymes and transporters. What is needed is a simple flow-through assembly that must be amenable to incorporating hepatocytes and enterocytes, and should be high-throughput. Such a novel tool would provide great insights into the ADME of new molecular entities, expose the reasons for the discordance often found between the ADME characteristics of drug molecules across animal species vs. humans, and thereby materially reduce the need to rely on animal studies of the metabolism of drugs intended for humans.

“Initial proof-of-principle verification studies performed on Hurel devices have yielded efficacy, toxicity and metabolic information that was not producible in conventional static, cell-based assays.”

Hurel says that its biochip models real-time protein binding, metabolism, and extraction in the liver to provide an in vitro test of first-pass liver bioavailability. Other possible applications include the study of inter-organ toxicities and the integrated mechanisms of absorption and bioavailability of orally administered compounds.

Hurel anticipates launching its contract research services in 2007.

Report forecasts increase in EHR spending

In a report published by IDC's Health Industry Insights (Framingham, Massachusetts), the research and advisory firm forecasts total information technology (IT) spending for the electronic health record (EHR) market in the U.S. to increase to $4.8 billion in 2015.

The study reveals a compounded annual growth rate of 15.8% in the EHR market over the next 10 years, with 2005 spending in that market estimated at $1.1 billion.

“We're seeing a renewed interest and investment in healthcare IT, sparked by President Bush's federal mandate to create electronic medical records for Americans by 2014 and re-ignited earlier this week by the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology's [CCHIT] product certification announcement,“ said Lynne Dunbrack, program director of Payer Research at Health Industry Insights, and lead author of the report. “All of this is helping to create a new tipping point for EHRs and lots of opportunity in this space.“

Dunbrack projects total market share for two sub-segments of healthcare – payers and providers. “Payers will invest earlier in EHRs compared with providers because they currently have more digitized health information than other stakeholders in the health ecosystem.“