A Medical Device Daily

Paladin Data Systems (Poulsbo, Washington), a privately owned software engineering solutions firm, said it has been awarded a $1.8 million contract from the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command to conduct additional research and expand the Outbreak Detection Information Network (ODIN).

ODIN is a wide-area monitoring program designed to detect near-real-time trends in healthcare treatment and diagnosis.

The project is a joint research and development effort of Paladin Data Systems, the Foundation for Health Care Quality (Seattle), the Department of Defense, the University of Washington (Seattle), the Washington State Department of Health and the public health departments of Kitsap County, Tacoma/Pierce County and Seattle/King County.

The original goal of the ODIN project was to provide early detection of bioterrorism events.

“This technology has the potential to greatly improve our response times to a bioterrorism act,“ said ODIN principal investigator, Dr. Peter Dunbar of the Foundation for Health Care Quality. “It also offers the capability to better monitor and track normal health events across communities, such as flu, food poisoning, SARS and other types of outbreaks.“

The ODIN system has been under development for the past year in the Puget Sound region, and the additional funding will expand the system to cover more of Washington state, and integrate additional sources of information into the system, such as over-the-counter drug sales and 911 aid calls.

“We've been able to expand on Sen. Patty Murray's initial vision of a system that merged the public and Department of Defense health monitoring into a common view,“ said Gary Macy, Paladin's ODIN project leader, “by creating an integrated system that provides enhanced functionality and data interchange to users across geographic and organizational boundaries, without adding significantly to the overall cost of the system.“

“The ODIN project will serve to create a statewide Syndromic Surveillance system,“ said Dunbar. “ODIN has the potential to make health data sharing between healthcare systems possible, providing a huge opportunity to increase patient safety for all Washington residents. I believe that we have the potential to create a significant positive impact on the healthcare infrastructure of not only the state, but the nation.“

IRIS International (Chatsworth, California), a manufacturer and marketer of automated IVD urinalysis systems and medical devices used in hospitals and reference clinical laboratories worldwide, reported that it has entered into a supply agreement for its iQ 00 Automated Urinalysis System and related products with Consorta (Rolling Meadows, Illinois), a healthcare resource management and group purchasing organization.

Consorta's shareholders are among the leading integrators of nonprofit healthcare in America, sponsoring significant care providers nationwide. The organization's 13 shareholder healthcare systems represent 60% of all Catholic hospitals in the U.S. The Consorta membership encompasses more than 2,400 care sites with more than 78,000 patient care beds.

Under the terms of the three-year, dual-source agreement, Consorta-affiliated hospitals throughout the U.S. can purchase the iQ200 Automated Urine Microscopy Analyzer and flagship iQ200 Automated Urinalysis System, which combines the iQ200 analyzer with the AX-4280 Automated Urine Chemistry Analyzer, resulting in the only fully integrated platform in the world performing complete urinalysis, both chemistry and microscopy.

The Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis (CPF; San Jose, California) reported that it has awarded the University of Michigan Health System's Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine (UMHS; Ann Arbor, Michigan) a $60,000 restricted gift to investigate two novel approaches for treating pulmonary fibrosis.

“This gift represents a significant milestone for the Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis because it is our first major gift to fund emerging research in pulmonary fibrosis,“ said Mark Shreve, CEO of the coalition.

The CPF has awarded UMHS gifts for two specific research initiatives:

  • Phase I/II trial of tetrathiomolybdate in patients with IPF refractory to previous therapy. Persistent overproduction of transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-B), a protein, is believed to be a central mechanism in pulmonary fibrosis.
  • Examining the role of circulating fibrocytes in the pathogenesis of pulmonary fibrosis. Principal investigators will be Bethany Moore, MD, and Galen Toews, MD.

Osteotech (Eatontown, New Jersey) reported that on Feb. 1, it entered into a license agreement with Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (New Brunswick, New Jersey) for a polymer class developed at Rutgers, for use as part of the Plexus technology under development at Osteotech.

Osteotech will pay Rutgers an initial license fee of $50,000 within 30 days and will pay an additional $250,000 upon the completion of the first two milestones specified in the agreement, but no later than 270 days from Feb. 1.

The agreement also calls for additional payments, aggregating $350,000, which are to be made as each of three additional milestones are completed. Further, commencing no later than 270 days after the effective date of the agreement and continuing until commercialization of the first product in a major market, the company is required to make quarterly minimum license maintenance fee payments to Rutgers.

Upon commercialization of products, Osteotech will pay Rutgers the greater of royalties or the minimum license maintenance fees.