A Medical Device Daily

Diagnostic Products (Los Angeles) and Thermo Electron (Waltham, Massachusetts) reported that they have entered into an agreement for the co-development of a new, high-throughput clinical chemistry platform.

That platform will integrate with DPC’s future immunochemistry platforms, and it will be suited for the medium and large-volume laboratories both in the hospital and private laboratory segments. The combination of DPC’s broad experience in immunochemistry with Thermo’s clinical chemistry and automation expertise is expected to provide clinical laboratories with a comprehensive diagnostic test solution that will automate most of their routine testing needs.

“This new development agreement extends the current relationship between Thermo and DPC to a new level,” said Lew Rosenblum, president of clinical diagnostics at Thermo Electron. “The existing distribution agreements, which were put in place in 2004 and cover Thermo’s current clinical chemistry and automation products, have already generated excellent results in many European markets.”

He added that partnering with DPC also provides Thermo with access to “the excellent distribution network that they have established throughout the world and will help ensure the global success of the new system.”

In other grants/contracts news:

• Delphi Medical Systems (Troy, Michigan), entered into an exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with Scroll Labs (Romeoville, Illinois) to obtain a new compressor technology for respiratory applications.

“We licensed this newly designed compressor technology to help us make improved medical devices. The compressor will provide us with proprietary technology that will take respiratory devices to a higher level of performance,” said Christophe Sevrain, managing director of Delphi Medical Systems.

Delphi Medical Systems expects to sign agreements soon for global distribution of the respiratory devices with the new compressor.

Delphi Medical Systems is a provider of technology, products, and product development and manufacturing for respiratory care, IV infusion, vital signs monitoring, dialysis equipment, in vitro diagnostics and surgical / hospital equipment. It is a subsidiary of Delphi Corp.

• Novadaq Technologies (Toronto) and the Sorin Group’s (Milan, Italy) CarboMedics unit, which focuses on medical technologies for cardiac surgery, said they have signed a North American agreement to distribute the SPY Intra-operative Imaging (SPY) System, a real-time visual imaging device for use during coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG).

Concurrently, Novadaq and Eastman Kodak (Rochester, New York) are finalizing a U.S. service agreement to provide ongoing service and maintenance for the SPY System.

There are more than 400,000 CABG surgeries performed in North America each year. Novadaq said the SPY System is the only procedure that allows real-time visual confirmation of revascularization during CABG surgery thereby allowing bypass graft technical errors to be detected and corrected while the patient is still in the operating room.

• Consorta (Schaumburg, Illinois), a group purchasing and resource management organization in the healthcare industry, has awarded a three-year, dual-source agreement for an innovative bowel management system to Zassi Medical Evolutions (Fernandina Beach, Florida).

“This agreement will provide our members with access to a bowel management system that will help them meet the challenges of managing fecal incontinence and helping reduce hospital-acquired infection (HAI) for their seriously ill patients,” said Michael Murphy, manager of medical-surgical contracting for Consorta.

Consorta’s membership, which includes more than 520 acute-care facilities and more than 300 extended-care facilities in the U.S., can expect significant clinical care advantages through the agreement, which becomes effective Aug. 1, the company said.