A Medical Device Daily

Tutogen Medical (Alachua, Florida) said that it has entered into a new international distribution agreement for its allograft and Tutoplast Bovine Pericardium tissues for urological procedures with Coloplast (Humlebaek, Denmark).

The agreement replaces the current distribution agreement where Coloplast has been the exclusive distributor of Tutogen allograft products for urological procedures in the U.S. since acquiring the Mentor Urology business in June 2006.

Guy Mayer, president/CEO of Tutogen Medical, said, "In a related matter, we expect that our Tutoplast Bovine Pericardium will soon be available in the U.S. The tissues have been very well received in Europe over the past few years and we expect that to be the case in the U.S. as well. Our tissues will be the only new xenograft product to be backed by several years of clinical experience and we believe that this provides us an important competitive advantage."

Tutogen Medical makes sterile biological implant products made from human (allograft) and animal (xenograft) tissue. Tutogen utilizes its Tutoplast Process of tissue preservation and viral inactivation to manufacture and deliver sterile bio-implants used in spinal/trauma, urology, dental, ophthalmology, and general surgery procedures.

The company's Tutoplast products are sold and distributed worldwide by Zimmer Spine and Zimmer Dental, subsidiaries of Zimmer (Warsaw, Indiana), Davol, a subsidiary of C.R. Bard, Mentor (Mentor; Santa Barbara, California), Coloplast, IOP (Costa Mesa, California) and through independent distributors internationally.

In other agreements news:

• Patient Care Technology Systems (PCTS; Mission Viejo, California), a subsidiary of Consulier Engineering, and Sonitor Technologies (Largo, Florida) reported an alliance to jointly market their hospital workflow technologies.

The companies will coordinate sales and marketing efforts to provide a turnkey workflow solution that integrates Sonitor's ultrasound-based indoor positioning system with PCTS' Amelior automatic patient and asset tracking software. The integrated system will provide real-time identification of patient care milestones and the reliably accurate location of clinical resources for caregivers in areas such as the emergency, surgery and outpatient services departments. Caregivers will be better able to anticipate and manage workflows for safer and more efficient care as a result, the companies said.

"The ultrasound locating technology from Sonitor represents a compelling new alternative for collecting accurate, room or sub-room-level location data," said Tony Marsico, CEO of PCTS. "Sonitor's application of ultrasound technology delivers real-time locating data for our automatic patient and asset tracking software to measure interactions between caregivers, patients and medical equipment. The integration of our technologies represents a new turnkey workflow automation option for healthcare providers."

The Sonitor indoor positioning system (IPS) uses detectors and tags that are linked through the existing wired or wireless local area network (LAN) to a digital file containing all vital statistics and information about the item or person being monitored. The motion activated tag transmits a unique identification signal using ultrasound waves to special detectors that use Sonitor patented ultrasound signal Digital Signal Processing (DSP) algorithms.

The detectors transmit signals via an existing LANs to a central computer that stores the information about the Tag's room-location and the time of receipt of the signal. Sonitor's ultrasound technology ensures that detectors interpret tag signals without risk of interference from any environmental noise or other signals, nor interfere with sensitive instruments. The system is designed for safety and all emitted sound pressure levels are within the international regulations for the safe use of ultrasound.

Patient Care Technology Systems provides hospitals with workflow automation solutions designed to improve patient flow and to reduce the risk of medical errors.

Sonitor Technologies is a maker of ultrasound indoor positioning system (IPS) that automatically tracks precisely by room the real-time location of moveable equipment and people in complex indoor environments, such as hospitals.

• BG Medicine (Waltham, Massachusetts) reported that it has entered into a research collaboration with The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center (Houston) aimed at improving the treatment of breast cancer.

BG Medicine will apply its biomarker discovery technology to the analysis of clinical samples provided by center. The goal of the collaboration is to identify novel, specific and sensitive blood-based protein and metabolite biomarkers in breast cancer patients who are receiving selected treatments.