A Medical Device Daily

KineMed (Emeryville, California), a translational and personalized medicine development company, reported a broadening of its collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb (New York) in the area of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. This agreement builds on the original collaboration between the two companies begun in June 2009.

"We are very pleased to be working with Bristol Myers Squibb to enable the development of their drugs intended to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease by novel mechanisms. KineMed is excited by the possibility that our novel measures of brain function could play a crucial role in advancing such potentially beneficial new medicines. The early ability to move forward to human proof of concept studies in the arena of neurodegeneration exemplifies what our Translational Medicine platform can accomplish," said Robert Stein, MD, PhD, KineMed's CEO.

KineMed uses the administration of stable (non-radioactive) isotopes to provide "high-definition" pharmacological measurements of disease activity and drug effects across a wide range of therapy areas, including diseases of the nervous system, metabolic and cardiovascular disease, cancer, inflammation, and musculoskeletal diseases. KineMed is developing a small, high-quality pipeline of its own in-licensed compounds.

In other agreements/contracts news:

• Ingram Micro (Santa Ana, California) reported a new distribution relationship with NextGen Healthcare Information Systems (Irvine, California), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Quality Systems (Irvine, California). NextGen Healthcare provides electronic health record and practice management systems, connectivity solutions and revenue cycle management services for hospitals, health systems and physician practices of all sizes, including more than 25 medical specialties.

Ingram Micro will work with NextGen Healthcare to proactively recruit, train and support new partners focused on providing healthcare information technology solutions.

Ingram Micro will also provide flexible financing and leasing options to help solution providers acquire NextGen solutions, increase their margin opportunity and minimize their expenditures. These progressive financing options are intended to help channel partners and end-users take advantage of ARRA stimulus payments for healthcare IT adoption.

• Premier Purchasing Partners (Charlotte, North Carolina) said that new agreements for bedside procedure trays and needles have been awarded to Busse Hospital Disposables (Hauppauge, New York); CareFusion 2200 (San Diego); and Covidien (Mansfield, Massachusetts). The agreements are available to acute care and continuum of care members of the Premier healthcare alliance.