A Medical Device Daily

Siemens Healthcare (Deerfield, Illinois) and Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp; Burlington, North Carolina) reported entering into a non-exclusive agreement to discuss future possibilities to co-develop new clinical diagnostic tests in the areas of companion diagnostics, metabolic syndrome, oncology and diabetes.

Initial discussions will focus on developing new tests that could make the biggest impact to patient care.

Companion diagnostics are tests designed to identify the suitability between patients and a particular drug therapy. The tests can be used in personalized medicine to improve safety and efficacy of therapeutic drugs and in some cases, may help determine optimal dosing for individual patients.

Siemens delivers a broad range of products and services used for diagnosing medical conditions and monitoring patient therapy. LabCorp is a reference laboratory serving more than 220,000 clients in America. Together, the companies are positioned to co-develop and introduce new diagnostic tests that may advance patient care through early detection and proper monitoring of disease.

"This agreement establishes a framework that gives both companies the opportunity to offer new diagnostic tests to laboratories, physicians and their patients more quickly and effectively than either could do alone," said Dave Hickey, senior vice president strategic planning and business development at Siemens.

"LabCorp is excited about this strategic collaboration and its impact on our companion diagnostics efforts," said Myla Lai-Goldman, MD, executive vice president, chief scientific officer and medical director for LabCorp. "Alliances such as this between developers and providers of new tests are critical in translating emerging biomarkers from research into clinical practice."

In other agreement news:

• Applied Isotope Technologies (AIT; Pittsburgh) said that the company's biochemimarker discovery products will be exclusively used for the analyses of samples from autistic children for metabolic biochemical assessment when they are placed in an environmental pediatric room to be constructed at The Children's Institute (also Pittsburgh).

Scott Faber, MD, a specialist in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), will lead a team of scientists for this pilot project that aims to study the effects of environmental factors on this debilitating set of disorders.

Funding for the initial phase of the project was provided by Alcoa (also Pittsburgh) as a $200,000 grant. At the conclusion of the feasibility phase, the work will be expanded with funding from other sources, both public and private.

• Pall (East Hills, New York) and VWR International (West Chester, Pennsylvania) reported that they have renewed their master distributor supply agreement, which involves the sales and promotion of Pall's filtration technologies to VWR customers in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and throughout Europe.

Labs in industry, universities and government research centers consume high volumes of filtration, separation and purification products.

• Premier Purchasing Partners (Charlotte, North Carolina) said new agreements for electronic thermometry have been awarded to TruTek (Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania) and Welch Allyn (Skaneateles Falls, New York).

The 36-month agreements, available to both acute-care and continuum-of-care markets, are effective.