A Medical Device Daily

MedPro Safety Products (Lexington, Kentucky) said it has entered into two manufacturing supply agreements with Greiner Bio-One, a division of Greiner Bio-One International (Kremsmuenster, Austria), valued at $57.8 million.

The two agreements grant Greiner the right to manufacture, market and distribute MedPro's tube-activated and skin-activated blood collection systems and its winged "butterfly" safety needle system. Each agreement extends for a six-year term from the commencement of initial manufacturing of the applicable products.

Greiner agreed to pay MedPro a production per-unit royalty on a minimum volume of units of each product plus additional cash to acquire the production lines for the products.

The agreement with Greiner for the exclusive right to manufacture and distribute MedPro's tube-activated blood collection system and its skin-activated blood collection device supersedes and replaces a prior distribution agreement with Greiner for the system.

Greiner agreed to pay MedPro a capital amount not to exceed $8.6 million for the rights to MedPro's tube-activated and skin-activated blood collection system. Additionally, Greiner is obligated to pay a minimum production royalty of $33 million for its commitment of a minimum of 275 million pieces during the initial five years of the agreement.

Greiner also entered into an agreement for the exclusive right to manufacture and distribute MedPro's winged "butterfly" safety needle system on similar terms. Greiner will pay MedPro an amount not to exceed $5 million in exchange for the production of this product. Greiner will make an initial payment of $1 million upon acceptance of the initial design plan by Greiner on or before Oct. 1, 2008. Additionally, Greiner is obligated to pay a minimum royalty of $10.8 million for its commitment of a minimum of 75 million pieces during the agreement's initial five years.

In other contracts:

• Palomar Medical Technologies (Burlington, Massachusetts) reported a new agreement with Astron Clinica (Cambridge, UK) to distribute aesthetic imaging products in the U.S. and Canada.

Palomar will have exclusive rights to sell Beau Visage, a skin imaging and consultation system. Palomar's customers can use Beau Visage during initial client meetings to visualize and measure blood, pigment, and wrinkles before recommending cosmetic treatments using Palomar's StarLux Laser and Pulsed Light System.

Palomar also will sell Astron Clinica's Physiometrics photographic imaging system which captures a library of images of the body. This new technology will allow for visual documentation of the benefits that will be seen using the recently introduced Palomar Aspire SlimLipo laser-assisted lipolysis system.

• DataCore Software (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) said that its SANmelody software is serving as the foundation of a replication and disaster recovery (DR) plan at Alameda County Medical Center (ACMC; Oakland, California) orchestrated by DataCore partner Entisys (Concord, California). The IT environment at ACMC was based upon products from Dell and EMC, as well as virtual machines from VMware.

• BayCare Health System (Tampa) and PeaceHealth (Bellevue, Washington) healthcare system have selected real-time electronic surveillance and expert clinical decision support systems provided by TheraDoc (Salt Lake City).

TheraDoc says that its interoperable Expert System Platform is a standards-based, scalable solution providing hospitals with real-time surveillance, management, prevention and reporting of patient safety problems, such as hospital-acquired infections and adverse drug events.

• Orchestrate Healthcare (Greenwood Village, Colorado), a provider of healthcare IT integration consulting services, said that St. Vincent's HealthCare (SVHC; Jacksonville, Florida) has contracted with it to provide Sun Java CAPS training to its team of IT professionals.

SVHC said it recently formed a team of five IT professionals with Java CAPS experience.

Interventional Spine surpasses 400 physicians

Interventional Spine (Irvine, California) said that it has surpassed the 400-physician milestone in delivering training on its percutaneous spine therapy technologies since introducing its product line less than two years ago. Of this group, 150 physicians have completed such training in the past six months, illustrating the increasing pace at which the company is expanding its presence in the spine treatment market.

"This performance and achievement is indicative of the accelerating interest by physicians in being able to offer their patients treatment alternatives with Interventional Spine's products, which are aimed at eliminating open back surgery when conservative care fails to mitigate chronic, debilitating back pain," said CEO Walter Cuevas.