Originally Published IVD Technology April 2005
INDUSTRY NEWS
Notables
Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, IL) and The Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland) have agreed to jointly develop an automated IVD for detecting myeloperoxidase (MPO), a white blood cell enzyme that can help predict a patient’s susceptibility to cardiovascular disease. Under the agreement, Abbott will have nonexclusive rights to the latter’s MPO-related technologies and will have worldwide commercialization rights for products emerging from the collaboration. PrognostiX Inc. (Cleveland), the commercial offshoot of The Cleveland Clinic, will provide support during the development process. The deal is borne, in part, out of research carried out at The Cleveland Clinic and published in 2003 that linked high MPO levels with an increased risk of heart attack.
The American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC; Washington, DC) has established a new division focused on proteomics and the opportunities that evolving analytical instrumentation technologies have created for diagnostics. AACC’s Proteomics Division will be charged with educating laboratorians about trends in the clinical field, as well as communicating with medical professionals in the medical community at large. Glen L. Hortin, MD, PhD, who will head the new division, acknowledges that proteomics has played an important role in diagnostics for years, but says that there have been exciting developments recently. “What has changed is the addition of a powerful set of new tools that enable more-detailed structural analysis of proteins and simultaneous analysis of multiple proteins, rather than one protein at a time,” says Hortin.
Eastman Chemical Company (Kingsport, TN) has launched Centrus International Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary geared toward food safety diagnostics. Centrus will take advantage of both its parent company’s biotechnology and chemistry offerings as well as the optical screening technologies acquired when Eastman purchased Biosys Inc. last year. The two testing systems that have been unveiled—the Soleris systems and the Envisio system—can detect microbial contamination in food, dairy, meat, nutraceutical, and industrial products.
Jeffrey C. Needham, who has held management positions at Eastman for two decades, will be general manager at Centrus. Dominique Sorgeloos, PhD, who has served as president of Biosys, will serve as managing director, business operations.
Pamela G. Bailey, who has served as President and CEO of the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed; Washington, DC) since 1999, will be stepping down April 1 to become the new head of the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association. In a mid-March statement, AdvaMed praised Bailey’s work during her tenure and said a committee of AdvaMed board members—Arthur D. Collins Jr., chairman and CEO of Medtronic Inc. (Minneapolis); Dennis N. Longstreet, company group chairman of Johnson & Johnson (New Brunswick, NJ); and Edward J. Ludwig, chairman and CEO of Becton, Dickinson, and Co. (Franklin Lakes, NJ)—had begun a search for a successor, but would not comment on the timetable or possible candidates. Until a replacement is found, day-to-day operations of AdvaMed will be managed by a group of senior executives at the association.
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