Alliance Medical (Phoenix, Arizona), a reprocessor of medical devices, signed a sole-source agreement with Shriners Hospitals for Children (Shriners Hospitals), a North American network of pediatric hospitals that provides complex orthopedic medical and rehabilitative treatment, burn care and spinal cord injury rehabilitation at no cost to its patients. The three-year agreement runs until Feb. 1, 2005, and covers all 20 U.S. hospitals. Shriners hospitals will have access to Alliance's clinical implementation teams that help hospitals maximize their savings from reprocessing medical devices.

Battelle Pulmonary Therapeutics (BPT; Columbus, Ohio) has signed an agreement with Cardinal Health's (Dublin, Ohio) Sterile Technology Group to provide sterile development and manufacturing services for BPT's Mystic inhalation device. The Sterile Technologies Group will collaborate with BPT to design the sterile pouch and manufacturing process that holds the liquid pharmaceutical inside its Mystic inhalation device.

BD Biosciences, a business segment of Becton Dickinson (Franklin Lakes, New Jersey), and Kensey Nash (Exton, Pennsylvania) have entered an agreement to commercialize a product line of Kensey Nash biomaterials to be sold as 3-D cell culture scaffolds for research applications. Kensey Nash will manufacture the products and BD Biosciences Discovery Labware will market and sell them worldwide. The first two products will be 3-D collagen and porous polymer scaffolds packaged in BD Falcon 48-well cell culture plates. Other products will likely be developed during the term of the agreement.

Broadlane (San Francisco, California), a provider of supply chain management services to the health care industry, said it has signed an agreement with Boston Scientific (Natick, Massachusetts) to integrate Boston Scientific into Broadlane's e-commerce exchange. Included are products in such categories as coronary and peripheral interventions, cardiac electrophysiology, radiology/oncology interventions, neuro/peripheral interventions, vascular surgery, endoscopy and urology.

CryoLife (Kennesaw, Georgia) has signed a series of agreements with AlloSource (Centennial, Colorado), one of the nation's largest nonprofit tissue bank cooperatives. The agreements outline distribution by CryoLife of AlloSource processed, fresh osteoarticular (OA) grafts and fresh-frozen tibialis tendon allografts. In addition, AlloSource will send tibialis and peroneus longus tendon allografts to CryoLife for processing with that company's patented process and distribution by CryoLife. Under the terms of the agreements, AlloSource will attempt to make available to CryoLife a monthly allotment of fresh OA allografts and allograft tendons for use in the reconstruction of damaged knees, with focused distribution by CryoLife of these grafts back to the AlloSource donor communities. CryoLife is involved in tissue-engineered implantable heart valves, vascular and orthopedic grafts and surgical adhesives.

Hologic (Bedford, Massachusetts) said it has been awarded a three-year, dual-source contract with HealthTrust Purchasing Group (San Francisco, California) covering its Fluoroscan line of mini C-arm imaging systems. HealthTrust Purchasing Group has more than 800 facility members. Hologic develops digital imaging technology for general radiography and mammography applications.

Light Sciences (Issaquah, Washington), developer of a new integrated approach to photodynamic therapy for cancer, eye and cardiovascular disease, has signed a development and services agreement with Agilent Technologies (Palo Alto, California). Agilent will provide Light Sciences with optoelectronic design and fabrication services through its Semiconductor Products Group. The companies are collaborating on the development of new light-emitting diodes that will be used with Light Science's Light Infusion Technology.

Oridion Systems (Jerusalem, Israel) and Bound Tree Medical (Henninker, New Hampshire) have signed a distribution agreement under which Bound Tree will distribute Oridion's Microcap series monitors and consumable products to emergency medical services customers. The Microcap, which contains Oridion's Microstream CO₂ measuring technology, provides for continuous or spot-check EtCO₂ monitoring.

Spineology (Stillwater, Minnesota), an orthopedic and spinal implant company, and the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation (MTF; Edison, New Jersey), a provider of human musculoskeletal allografts, have entered into a development, distribution and marketing agreement. The companies said they would co-develop a delivery system for MTF's allograft bone into Spineology's OptiMesh. MTF will develop a human allograft and demineralized bone matrix capable of delivery through Spineology's proprietary fill tubes. The pre-filled allograft tubes will be used to fill Spineology's OptiMesh, currently under development, designed to contain bone grafting materials in orthopedic procedures. Spineology also has entered into an agreement with Orthovita (Malvern, Pennsylvania), a developer of orthopedic biomaterials, to explore the combined use of Spineology's products under development together with certain of Orthovita's proprietary synthetic bone products. The first of such studies is expected in Europe and will be focused on the use of OptiMesh together with Orthovita's Cortoss Synthetic Cortical Bone Void Filler.