A Medical Device Daily

Illumina (San Diego) and ReaMetrix (San Carlos, California) reported formation of a diagnostic collaboration under which the companies will co-develop molecular diagnostic panels for a range of diseases.

ReaMetrix will gain non-exclusive rights to market the resulting panels to the country of India and its more than one billion inhabitants. Illumina will retain rights to market the tests outside of India. Illumina will supply VeraCode technology and other reagents for the tests.

ReaMetrix will develop, validate and market diagnostic panels based on Illumina's upcoming BeadXpress platform, scheduled for market introduction before the end of the calendar year. ReaMetrix will drive market development activities from its operation in Bangalore, India.

According to Bala Manian, PhD, ReaMetrix CEO, “India's rapidly emerging healthcare system presents a tremendous opportunity to leapfrog current diagnostics and chart a new path with innovative molecular and pharmacogenomic testing. Teaming up with Illumina and its BeadXpress diagnostic platform, we see a significant opportunity to drive the evolution toward the efficiencies inherent in targeted, personalized medicine.”

Illumina develops tools for large-scale analysis of genetic variation and function. Its BeadArray technology enables researchers in the life sciences and pharma industries to perform tests to extract information from advances in genomics and proteomics.

In other agreements news:

• Henry Schein (Melville, New York), a provider of healthcare products and services to office-based practitioners in the North American/European markets, reported a distribution agreement with Imaging Sciences International (Hatfield, Pennsylvania), which develops advanced dental radiography products and 3-D diagnostic imaging.

The agreement will expand Henry Schein's diagnostic imaging offerings within the U.S. and Canada. Imaging Sciences reported sales of $25 million in 2005 in the U.S. and Canada.

Imaging Sciences says its products enable dentists to create anatomically accurate treatment plans for surgical procedures. Its flagship offering is the i-CAT Cone Beam 3-D Imaging System.

• Abaxis (Union City, California), a maker of blood analysis systems, said it has entered into a distribution agreement with Infolab (Greensboro, North Carolina) for Infolab to distribute the Piccolo chemistry analyzer and the line of Abaxis' reagent discs within the U.S.

Infolab, founded in 1968, specializes in equipment and supplies for the clinical laboratory in hospitals, physician offices, research facilities, universities, and other facilities performing clinical laboratory testing.

Abaxis manufactures portable blood analysis systems for use in any veterinary or human patient-care or veterinary setting to provide clinicians with rapid blood constituent measurements. The system consists of a portable analyzer and a series of single-use plastic discs, called reagent discs, that contain the chemicals required to perform a panel of up to 14 tests on human patients and 13 tests on veterinary patients.