A Medical Device Daily

Building a radiology imaging partnership launched nine months ago, McKesson (San Francisco) reported expanding its distribution agreement with Toshiba America Medical Systems (Tustin, California), in which Toshiba will offer Horizon Cardiology Hemo, a component of McKesson's Horizon Cardiology solution, as an option with Toshiba's Infinix portfolio of vascular X-ray systems.

Rod O'Reilly, VP and general manager of McKesson's Medical Imaging Group, said, "Our companies enjoy complementary products and a mutual vision to support broadscale adoption of affordable technologies that promote the highest-quality patient care. Cardiology is the next logical step in this progressive business relationship. McKesson and Toshiba expect to continue to introduce products to meet the demands of the market across all modalities."

In July 2006, the two companies signed an agreement to offer McKesson's Horizon Medical Imaging picture archiving and communication system solution with Toshiba's diagnostic imaging devices, including the Aquilion line of CT scanners.

In other agreements: Premier Purchasing Partners (Charlotte, North Carolina) reported new agreements for reposable surgical instruments have been awarded to ConMed (Utica, New York); GeniCon (Winter Park, Florida); and Microline PENTAX (Beverly, Massachusetts).

The new 36-month agreements were effective April 1, and offer discounted pricing for reposable surgical instruments to all members of the Premier alliance. Premier also reported new agreements for exam and surgeon gloves to Ansell Healthcare Products (Red Bank, New Jersey); Cardinal Health Medical Products and Services (McGaw Park, Illinois); Cypress Medical Products (McHenry, Illinois); Digitcare (Los Angeles, California); Kimberly-Clark Global Sales (Roswell, Georgia); Medgluv (Fort Lauderdale, Florida); Medline Industries of Mundelein, Illinois); and Sempermed USA (Clearwater, Florida).

Agreements for surgeon gloves have been awarded to Ansell Healthcare Products (Red Bank, New Jersey); Cardinal Health Medical Products and Services (McGaw Park, Illinois); Medline Industries (Mundelein, Illinois); Molnlycke Health Care (Norcross, Georgia).

The 36-month agreements, effective May 1, offer savings to acute-care and continuum-of-care members of the Premier alliance.