WHO names first Health-Promoting Hospital

The World Health Organization (WHO; Geneva) has named Memorial Medical Center (Johnstown, Pennsylvania) as the first Health-Promoting Hospital in the U.S. The WHO's health-promotion organization is dedicated to improve equity in health, reduce health risks and promote healthy lifestyles and environments.

News of Memorial Medical Center's designation was announced at the recent WHO conference in Denmark.

Steris signs lease deal in Mexico

Steris (Mentor, Ohio), which focuses on infection prevention, decontamination and health science technologies, products and services, said the company has selected a facility in the Monterrey area of Mexico as the future site for manufacturing operations that are being transferred from Erie, Pennsylvania, as previously reported.

The company has entered into an agreement to lease a facility owned by the Avante Group, a Monterrey-based real estate development company, located in the city of Guadalupe, just east of Monterrey in the state of Nuevo Leon and approximately two and a half hours south of Laredo, Texas.

The facility comprises approximately 13 acres in the Guadalupe Industrial Park. Terms of the lease agreement were not disclosed.

After some initial build-out and construction at the site, the company plans to transfer the operations in phases, which are expected to continue through the summer of 2007. When fully operational, the new facility will manufacture sterilization equipment for use in healthcare institutions, pharmaceutical production facilities and research laboratories.

Study: Patent litigation not expensive 'in long run'

Patent litigation, with its average $15 million price tag, may rightly appear to be a high cost for brand teams looking to defend their products from generic threats. But, according to business intelligence firm Cutting Edge Information (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina), $15 million may be a bargain once savings are considered.

“Companies using patent litigation to delay generic entrants from coming to the market can potentially save their brand anywhere from $60,000 to $8 million per day, depending on the financial success of the drug,“ said Elio Evangelista, senior research analyst at Cutting Edge Information and lead author of Defending Brand Revenue: Pharmaceutical Lifecycle Management Planning.

“So while $15 million seems like an expensive price to pay, companies may be able to make up for the cost in a matter of weeks,“ Evangelista said.

The study found that patent litigation is the most common lifecycle management strategy used to protect a product's market share from generic competition.

LCA Vision opens Grand Rapids location

LCA-Vision (Cincinnati), a provider of laser vision correction services under the LasikPlus brand, reported the opening of its 52nd LasikPlus vision center in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The entry into Grand Rapids marks the first LasikPlus vision center in the state of Michigan. LasikPlus vision centers are now located in 26 states, serving 39 markets.