A Medical Device Daily

Aesthera (Pleasanton, California) said it has moved to direct sales representation in four states in the southern U.S., following the model used in the company's other U.S. sales regions.

Aesthera, developer of Photopneumatic (PPx) technology, has terminated its distribution agreement with Eclipse Medical (Vacaville, California). Since May 2005 Eclipse had represented Aesthera's aesthetic treatment systems in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma. Customers in those states are expected to directly benefit from Aesthera's customer support programs, the company said.

Aesthera makes light-based aesthetic treatment systems based on its Photopneumatic Technology. PPx delivers energy to dermal targets for hair removal and the treatment of vascular and pigmented lesions.

In other agreements:

• Misonix (Farmingdale, New York), a developer of ultrasonic medical device technology for the treatment of cancer and other chronic health conditions, said that it has entered into a distribution agreement with Medline Industries (Mundelein, Illinois) for the SonicOne Ultrasonic Wound Debridement System. Medline, a privately-held manufacturer and distributor of healthcare products with $2 billion in annual sales, has been named the exclusive distributor for Misonix's SonicOne wound care product in the U.S. Misonix internally developed the SonicOne and manufactures the product at its global headquarters in Farmingdale.

Medline is a privately held national manufacturer and distributor of healthcare supplies and services.

• Bioheart (Sunrise, Florida), a developer of cell therapies for heart repair, reported signing patent licensing agreement with Tricardia (Eden Prairie, Minnesota) for patents covering an improved injection needle. The needle will be attached to Bioheart's SR-200 MyoCath needle injection catheter system, which is designed to deliver biological solutions to the heart.

The agreement gives Bioheart the worldwide exclusive rights to four issued U.S. patents and corresponding foreign filings that cover the needle and its methods of use in the field of delivering therapeutic compositions to the heart

• Ingenuity Systems (Redwood City, California) and Agilent Technologies (Palo Alto, California) said they entered an agreement to establish integration between Agilent's GeneSpring Analysis Platform and Ingenuity Pathways Analysis. Genomics researchers are expected to be able to easily exchange data between both applications, leveraging each system's ability to analyze high-volume gene expression data and to perform advanced biological pathway analysis.

• The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC; Pittsburgh) reported its ongoing relationship with Elekta (Norcross, Georgia), which is designed to advance UPMC's leadership in the fast-growing field of extracranial radiosurgery utilizing the Elekta Axesse system, the company said.

The Elekta Axesse system provides robotic image-guided radiosurgery for the spine with free breathing delivery, which is designed to “reduce treatment time and complexity,” the company said.

• OTN (South San Francisco), a specialty pharmaceutical services company, and Owens & Minor (Richmond, Virginia), a distributor of national medical/surgical supplies, said they have entered into an exclusive two-year distribution agreement.

OTN's customers will have access to Owens & Minor's selection of medical/surgical products customized for the office-based infusion setting.

“Office-based physicians providing infusion services to their patients have special medical and surgical supply needs, and we're excited to be collaborating with OTN to deliver critical supplies to these practices as conveniently and efficiently as possible,” said Craig Smith, president and CEO of Owens & Minor. “OTN give[s] us access to more than 4,000 specialty practices nationwide, including oncology and rheumatology practices.”