A Medical Device Daily

Sysmex America (Mundelein, Illinois) reported a five-year contract agreement for McKesson Medical-Surgical (San Francisco) to distribute the Sysmex pocH-100i, Sysmex KX-21N, and Sysmex XT- and XS-Series automated hematology analyzers to physician offices and other non-acute care facilities in the U.S. The companies will work collaboratively to provide training, installation and customer support services.

John Kershaw, president of Sysmex America, said, “We believe our agreement with healthcare veteran McKesson will significantly widen the distribution of Sysmex’s hematology products and services offered to physicians’ offices and non-acute healthcare facilities. We look forward to supporting McKesson’s leadership role as one of this country’s longest operating, customer-driven health care companies.”

In other agreements:

• Genzyme (Cambridge, Massachusetts) said it has entered into a license agreement with Moffitt Cancer Center (Tampa) to obtain exclusive worldwide diagnostic testing rights to the discovery of the relationship of two proteins to patient response to non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treatment.

The expression level of these proteins may help predict how these patients will respond to therapy. Genzyme Genetics said that its relationship with Moffitt broadens its lung cancer testing portfolio.

The expression levels of the two proteins, RRM1 and ERCC1, have been shown by Gerold Bepler, MD, and his team from Moffitt, to correlate with patient response to platinum drugs and gemcitabine, both of which are commonly used in treating NSCLC. Through this license, Genzyme plans to develop and market a diagnostic test that can be used to measure the expression levels of these proteins in NSCLC patients.

This test may be used to guide first-line treatment for these patients, which in turn may improve patient outcomes while avoiding unnecessary side effects from ineffective treatment.