American Medical Laboratories (AML; Chantilly, Virginia) has been selected as the preferred-source provider of esoteric reference laboratory testing services for MDS Laboratories (Brentwood, Tennessee). The two companies have signed a three-year agreement under which AML will provide highly esoteric and specialized testing services for MDS laboratory facilities across the country. MDS Laboratories is part of the Diagnostic Sector of MDS Inc. (Toronto, Ontario), an international health and life sciences company MDS is a provider of diagnostic laboratory services in Canada and a fast-growing player in the U.S.

Deltec (St. Paul, Minnesota) said it has entered into a co-marketing agreement with Amphastar-IMS (South El Monte, California) to promote IMS prefilled syringes to hospitals for use in their acute pain management programs. "The co-marketing agreement with IMS expands the products Deltec offers its post-op pain management customers, complimenting our new CADD-Prizm PCS II pump and new CADD-Diplomat PC Communications System with Batch Programming," said Jim Stitt, Deltec president. Deltec manufactures a wide range of infusion and access systems for domestic and international markets. International Medication Systems (IMS), a developer of sterile injectable pharmaceuticals to be used in a wide variety of delivery systems, was acquired by Amphastar in 1998.

Exactech (Gainesville, Florida) has named Exactech Vertriebs GmBH (Diessen, Germany) as its distributor for Germany and Austria. The company said it has already received a sizable stocking order for Germany and the first surgical procedure using an Exactech Optetrak knee product in Germany was performed last month. Exactech Vertriebs will initially operate with 10 representatives in Germany and will be selling the company's Optetrak knee product, adding products from the AcuMatch hip product line shortly.

Global Med Technologies (Lakewood, Colorado) has signed an agreement with United Clinical Laboratories (UCL; Dubuque, Iowa) to license Wyndgate Technologies' SafeTrace Tx hospital transfusion service management information system. Terms were not disclosed. Wyndgate is a division of Global Med, an e-health medical information technology company that provides software products and services to the health care industry. UCL is a fully networked, multisite clinical laboratory system. Wyndgate Technologies is a supplier of management information systems to U.S. blood centers.

MDS (Toronto, Ontario) and Signature BioScience (Hayward, California) signed a deal worth a minimum of $10 million that calls for MDS to develop Signature's microwave spectroscopy instrumentation. A press release noted that up-front fees to Signature will total $10 million, and other milestone and royalty payments for Signature are part of the package. In exchange, MDS gains exclusive license rights to commercialize research instrumentation and peripherals based on microwave spectroscopy instrumentation. The resulting new instruments will be sold, marketed and serviced by MDS under Signature's WaveSpec branded technology, as part of the MDS Sciex family.

PremiseHealth, which provides onsite health management for business and industry, entered into a five-year agreement with CyberCare (Boynton Beach, Florida) to use the CyberCare System to increase employee access to physicians while at work. The CyberCare System, which consists of the Electronic HouseCall family of products, the CyberCare 24 Network and the Cyber HealthManager, will be used to connect primary care physicians to employees of Premise's customers. PremiseHealth physicians will be able to remotely conduct a "virtual" office visit using the EHC 600 model with employees using an EHC 400 model at their worksite. Premise plans for several hundred EHC units to be deployed over the next few years concentrating in the southeastern U.S. and eventually worldwide. CyberCare is a network-based telehealth solutions company.

Smith & Nephew Rehabilitation (Germantown, Wisconsin) and Alara (Hayward, California) have begun a partnership in which Smith & Nephew will market Alara's Alexa Bone Densitometry System to orthopedic surgeons and rehabilitation professionals. The portable, office-based Alexa system measures bone density in the fingers to help diagnose osteoporosis. It takes 10 seconds to set up and image the fingers, and the machine provides results in less than one minute. The measurement technique used is included in Medicare coverage guidelines. Smith & Nephew Rehabilitation is a global provider of orthopedic rehabilitation services. Alara makes medical imaging products based on storage phosphor technology.

Varian Medical Systems (Palo Alto, California) a maker of integrated cancer therapy systems, has formed a strategic partnership with Optx, a developer of medical oncology treatment management software in North America. Varian will immediately offer cancer clinics Optx medical oncology management software as a VARiS MedOncology module within its Generation 6 suite of oncology information products. The new product, which will replace earlier versions of Varian's VARiS MedOncology software, will benefit cancer care providers who deliver both radiation therapy and chemotherapy to oncology patients.